Fear and Loss, Breaking and Healing
by ooihcnoiwlerh
Summary: A broken family. A man filled with guilt trying to get sober for good. A man defined by rage and violence trying to heal.  A newly-rich brother trying to reconcile.  And a young recovering alcoholic who gets mixed up in the equation.  Tommy/OC
1. Physical Healing Part One

This is based on the film "Warrior" which belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. If you haven't seen it, watch it before reading any further. Dead serious. Don't read a spoiler, either. I really wish I could add a third category onto this because, in my mind, this isn't just Drama/Romance. It's Drama/Romance/Family. It's not family-_friendly_ any more than the movie is, but it is family.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who's thought about writing a Tommy/OC story, but here's mine. The story starts almost immediately following the film, and, for the purposes of this story, omits the segment of the film in which Tommy's exposed for going AWOL, because he'd most certainly be held in a facility for several years leading up to a trial, leading to an entirely different story. And there will be a mix of past and present tense from time to time. Second, this chapter focuses pretty much entirely on Tommy's initial healing and rehabilitation, because a dislocated shoulder is a nightmare to deal with, especially for an athlete having to rest and build himself back up.

**Chapter One: Physical Healing (Part One)**

_There were so many things wrong with this: seeing his younger brother in lying unconscious in a hospital bed, _being_ the reason his younger brother was in the hospital in the first place, reporters barging in on things that shouldn't be shown, _couldn't_ be shown as entertainment to people who had no idea…_

_Brendan entered the hospital room and winced at the horrors he saw, but took a seat despite himself and stayed there as long as would be necessary. Tommy was unconscious, under sedation and lying in bed with his arm reset and in a sling, and all at his brother's doing. His little brother wasn't little anymore, that much was damn certain. And he'd been given enough painkillers to kill a small horse, or at least it seemed that way. _

_He nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard a knock at the door. "Come in," he said, groggy and disoriented enough as though he'd been the one on heavy painkillers instead of the two tablets of naproxen he'd taken as a courtesy, ignoring his own pain as long as he could. It didn't feel right at the moment to admit that he was in anything beyond mild discomfort. _

_Dad was the last person he wanted to see poke his head in. "How is he?" he asked in a tone of voice that really meant, _Just how much pain is he in_? _

"_Out like a light," Brendan said, not interested in playing into a father-son relationship they never really had beyond a biological level. "Listen, Paddy, I want to talk to him alone when he wakes up."_

_Paddy didn't push it this time. He understood. Didn't even wince at being called 'Paddy' instead of some variation of 'Dad.' He looked like hell. "I know. I didn't come here to tell you otherwise. I just came by to tell you to tell him that he's going to need some serious physical therapy after this. And please let me know how he's doing after he wakes up." _

_They could both hear a little reluctance in his voice as he said, "Yeah, I will." And once again it was just the two Conlon boys._

_For someone waking up heavily medicated after a physically traumatizing experience, waking up is not like in TV or movies. The patient's eyelids don't flutter open all of a sudden and even when the eyes are open the vision is too blurry to see anything clearly. It took a few minutes before he could talk, and even then, it was mostly slurred vowel sounds._

"_I…I heard the old man say something about fizz'cal ther'py…" was the first thing Brendan could understand._

"_Apparently," Brendan told him, and shifted his chair closer to the bed. "Do you want any water or…?"_

_Tommy shook his head. "I'd probably drop the fuckin cup anyway," he said. He had the faintest lopsided smile. It was probably there only because of the painkillers._

_Brendan looked at the ghost of a smile and realized he almost never saw his younger brother smile, not even as a young child. No, _especially_ not as a young child. He had had so little to smile about as a young child._

"_How're you feeling, aside from the obvious?"_

_Tommy's eyes shifted from his brother to his arm, which he apparently only just realized was in a sling, and back. "I can't feel a thing."_

_Now was not the time for heartfelt moments, not really, but he tried. Tried to give some meaning, sound reason to the chaos that had overtaken them both. Like trying to reason with a hurricane, take the strength of the wind and make the rest of it disappear. Life just doesn't work that way. "Listen, Tommy, I'm sorry…"_

"_It's fine." _It's not. _" I am way too tired to talk about it anyway." And he was out again. He faded in and out for a while. It must have been infectious. Brendan didn't even realize that he'd dozed off until he heard as if from a great distance, the sound of his brother's voice seeping through: "I was going to give the money to a family."_

_Brendan blinked several times. "What family?"_

"_My best friend in the Marines. His name was Manny. He was like…" he didn't say 'a brother.' He didn't need to. "First weekend pass we got, I couldn't go home. He invited me and I went with him to where he lived. He married really young, man. He, his wife and kids became kind of like a foster family. I know that's not what you want to hear right now. But they were."_

"_What happened?"_

_Tommy looked down and back. "He was killed. So now it was his widow trying to raise three kids on her own and work all the time. I owed my life to Manny and I wanted to do something to help. I didn't need the money like she did. Still does."_

_As had been the case recently, Brendan didn't know quite what to say. He was pretty sure it would come out wrong anyway. "Oh," was all he could come up with for the moment. "I'd wondered why you'd entered the competition."_

"_Why did you?" Tommy asked. _

"_The bank was going to take the house," Brendan said. "I didn't want to let my family down." He heard a snort of laughter. "I meant this time around."_

"_I know. Different kind of family._

"_You started teaching high school physics." His brother's tone brightened a little. It sounded kind of amazed, kind of questioning. Kind of way better than the seething anger with which he'd been greeted after sixteen years._

_He nodded. "That's right. Until I was suspended without pay when the superintendent found out I was fighting again."_

"_You're a physics teacher who became the toughest guy in the world." They both kind of laughed. Only kind of, though. He was pretty sure his brother was laughing only because of the medication. "I wouldn't have believed it."_

"_I can't believe anything about tonight." It wasn't much but it was a start. How close could two people really feel after all this? Brendan hoped in time he could get his brother back. But a dislocated shoulder was serious business. He wouldn't have been surprised if Tommy stopped speaking to him after this, once his meds wore off and the pain did not. For a while, anyway. And after a while his brother faded out and he figured he should, _should, _give him his rest._

"The thing with a dislocated shoulder is that it's much easier after the first time to dislocate it again. It's not like a broken bone. And you'll still sometimes feel pain for up to a year, well after you're fully recovered." Tommy's being released soon, and his doctor who has all the gentle bedside manners of an executioner is telling him just how stupid he was to allow himself to get hurt. Like it was actually his—or anyone else's—intention.

He sighs and tilts his head back. "Shit." It's several moments before he says, "How long do you think it will take to fully heal?"

"It will be at least two weeks, if you're talking being able to do anything without that sling."

"What." Just getting changed into his normal clothes was one of the more annoying, trickier things he has done. He's ready to have it taken off as soon as possible.

The doctor shrugs, focused intently on his clipboard. "The normal length of recovery is two to three weeks. And might I say, it was unwise to say the least to try to use that arm after dislocating the shoulder, especially in trying to fight. You're lucky you have youth and your level of fitness, or it would be longer."

"You expect me to not do anything for two weeks, after training for_ Sparta_?" He's used to physical demands that go beyond rigorous. Wrestling as an adolescent, twelve years in the Marines, and mixed martial arts have given him a need to be active. He doesn't want to imagine how his body's going to react to it all.

"You need to heal. MMA fighting is a dangerous sport. You must have been aware of the risks when you took it up." This guy is way too fucking cold to work with the injured. "The only exercise you can really do in whatever increments you want is walking. If there are leg or core exercises you can do without disturbing that arm, you can give it a try, but don't push it. Come back in two weeks and we'll see if your arm is ready to be taken out of that sling. I'll write out a prescription for you for some good pain medication…"

He can barely hear it. Exercise, fighting, what kept him at least close to sane, is being taken away from him.

**F**

The next two weeks are excruciating, regardless of the painkillers he takes whether he's hurting or not, because really, there's not much else to do. His appetite wanes. He spends hours a day walking, because, as the asshole doctor has said, it's the only thing he can do as much as he wants of. His body craves what it was used to, and more than anything, as the days blend together into one monotonous period of feeling crippled, he feels anger. No, he feels rage. And he can't work out or fight to vent that rage like he's been able to do in the past. To top it all off, he's never been good at sitting still.

He knows he'll forgive his brother for this. He knows he doesn't hate him, isn't angry with Brendan in particular, just at the world. That said, right now he can't see or talk to the man who's done this. It goes without saying he's not in any mood to talk to his dad, who it seems swears back off drinking the moment they get out of Atlantic City, but if he starts again Tommy doesn't really give a shit about that either right now, as long as the old man keeps it to himself.

Time doesn't crawl by. It doesn't seem to go at all. It's all this muddled period he feels like he's drowning in.

**E**

By the end of the two weeks, Tommy is trying very hard at all times not to tear off and burn the stupid fucking sling. He doesn't want to think about the "at least" part when he was told he'd need it for "two weeks at least." As far as he's concerned, he's waited more than long enough. When it's removed though, he's stunned at how weak and heavy his arm feels. Moving it is practically unfamiliar. He isn't prepared to feel pain simply from lifting his arm.

His doctor in Pittsburgh has the same bedside manner as the doctor in Atlantic City; he doesn't like hearing about his frustration and sends him to his first meeting with a physical therapist.

**A**

His physical therapist is a tall, athletic-looking Black man in his early forties, who, after introducing himself as David and shaking his hand (how the hell _that_ would feel strenuous, he doesn't understand) tells him, "As an athlete, you probably want to go back to your old routine immediately."

Tommy shrugs. "I'd be lying if I said that wasn't my hope."

David glances at the X-rays taken during Tommy's hospital stay two weeks ago, and at the one taken earlier today. "My brother-in-law is a huge fan of MMA. He had me watch that fight with him when I was visiting. I didn't think anyone could make it through two rounds of a cage fight with a dislocated shoulder, let alone make it through the initial healing process within two weeks."

"You thought it was going to be longer?"

David nods emphatically, still sorting through the reports, as he says, "To be honest, _yes. _I thought it would require another week in that sling, given that you put additional stress on that joint just after dislocating it, but it looks as though you're ready to start rehabilitating that arm and shoulder." He looks Tommy dead in the eye. "Thing is, you won't be able to go back to the same exercise routine you'd been doing to train. You'll be doing specialized exercises during therapy sessions, but in terms of outside fitness, boxing, wrestling, martial arts, those are out for now."

He'd argue, but he's already made that guess. The only question is, "If I'm allowed to start working out again, what is it that I _can_ do?"

"A little running would be fine, although the repetitive movements of the arms isn't the best thing. I personally think the only exercises you should be doing right now are the ones you learn here. For the time being, it will be hard learning how to turn a doorknob again."

Tommy doesn't feel the need to dignify that with a spoken response. He just sits back and raises his eyebrows.

David narrows his eyes. "I think I've said this before but I need to make this very clear to you: just because your arm is out of that sling does not mean you're ready to go through 'what you've been able to do.' Just, just _humor _me. See that pen?"

Another nod.

"Pretend to write your name. Don't force it if it really starts to hurt. Just try the movement."

And he does. He gives an involuntary hiss as he can't quite do it correctly. "_Shit_." He tries again through the pain.

"No, that's enough. Don't strain it right now. The next two weeks I just want you to come in for physical therapy. That's all. No swimming, no running, definitely no weight-lifting or fighting. Listen, I understand this is hard. You're an athlete. Not being able to move like you're used to can feel horrible. But you can't go back to your old routine for a while. Starting off slow and letting yourself heal is the only way you'll be able to get anywhere close to your old routine."

"How long?" he demands.

"Before going back to working out normally or fighting? Because the second is going to take quite a bit longer."

"Both."

David exhales and winces a little bit in empathy. The news gets worse and worse as he goes on. "Like I said, another two weeks before incorporating outside fitness or exercise, except walking and maybe core- or leg-work that doesn't put any strain on your right arm or shoulder. Six weeks before you can punch so much as a twenty-pound bag. Going back to your previous fitness level will be at least three, probably four months at best, if you really work for it, which I'm guessing from the look you're giving me right now, you will. Going back into the ring professionally really isn't something to think about right now. _Now _is what you gotta think about now."

So that's it. Part of him, that part that recognizes the pain in his shoulder for what it's worth, accepts that relearning the simple, everyday things, using a fork, using a pen, turning a key, is going to be as hard as some of the nastiest workouts he's had. "Does that mean we can start now?"

"Absolutely."

**R**

First thing he does when he leaves the session is call his brother from a payphone near the hospital. His father gave him the number he's not allowed to call anymore.

He hears a woman's voice on the other end. "Hello?" It's Tess.

"Hi, could I talk to Brendan?"

"Who is this?"

He almost laughs into the receiver, but hey, it _has _been sixteen years. "This is Tommy Riordan."

There's a gap of silence that stretches on a little longer than he thinks it should. "He's here. I'll get him for you."

He hears in the background shouting and after a much shorter time he hears Brendan's voice. "Tommy, is that really you?"

"Yeah, it's really me. I just got the sling off and my first taste of physical therapy."

"How is it?"

"Well, I'm talking to you, aren't I?" He hopes Brendan hears the hint of a smile he has. "It sucks. It's not really painful. Well, yeah, it is, but it's the little things that get weird, like turning a handle or writing." He's not on the phone to guilt-trip his brother, so he quits his moaning. "But the arm's out of the sling and I'm using it again."

"I'd been hoping to talk to you too. Listen, Tommy, we were able to pay off the mortgage and everything. Took care of the house, the car, were able to put into both our girls's _college funds_ fifteen years in advance with a lot left over so the thing is…we don't need it all."

Tommy winces. And just like that he's pissed off again. No, scratch that. He's fucking angry. He thought his brother was beyond this pity crap. "I don't want your money," he says. "That's not why I called you."

"You wanted to send money to your friend's family, and from what you've said, they need it. I just want to help."

He leans against the edge of the payphone. "You're not the one who owes it to them. You don't _know _them. I do."

"Maybe not, but I owe a hell of a lot to you, and if you let me, I'd like to help you help them out."


	2. Identity and Sobriety

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to Gavin O'Connor. And yes, I know Nick Nolte's seventy years old in real life. I'm writing Paddy as sixty-six going on sixty-seven. Don't like it? Tommy's thirty in this. And this may have to do with coming from a family of addicts—and being one myself, but even more than the fight, the most powerful moment in the film to me is Paddy's relapse, and I'm not going to leave him out. Also, I've forgotten the names of Brendan's two younger daughters, so for the time being they're "Stacey" and "Jennifer." Also, the OC won't be coming in until the next chapter.

**Chapter Two: Identity and Sobriety**

"Do you…do you really mean that?" He doesn't like the emotion in his voice, but it leaks through. He shifts his weight and tilts his head back, feeling restless, feeling exhilarated and without knowing why.

"Tommy, I can't change what I did fourteen years ago—I don't regret it much, though. I found my soul mate fourteen years ago—and I can't change what I did two weeks ago. But I can do something now. We both can. What do you say? Will you let me do that?"

"I…" he stops. His mouth has gone dry. Is it wrong that he's upset that he would be giving someone else's money to a family he owes his life instead of his own? Why is he at a loss for words? Why does this hurt like hearing Brendan say "I love you" in the octagon two weeks ago did?

"Do you want to pick this up later, in person?"

Might as well. It's not like he's going to get any further by phone. "…Yeah."

"We can do that. You want to come over tomorrow? I'll pick you up at the train station in the afternoon. Say, around twelve."

"Yeah." He's talking one syllable at a time, trying to get his voice to work. Awkward can't even begin to describe the feeling. "Uh. Thanks. See you."

Tommy gets off the phone and heads home.

Paddy's sitting in living room reading an old copy of _The_ _Bleak House_. It sounds right for this place, now that it's no longer _screaming, violent, drunken-rage _house. At least it's not _Moby Dick_ anymore. Paddy brightens as he sees his son's newly-free right arm and says, "Congratulations! You're free of the sling."

"Yeah. Thanks." He heads over to the kitchen for a glass of water, an exercise in turning a faucet that makes him wince, and hears the old man's voice falling through, saying, "Tommy, we need to talk about something."

It had to happen sooner or later. They're in the same house, after all. He comes back, leaning with his left side into the door frame. "You'd like me to find work and a place of my own because a thirty-year-old man shouldn't be living with his dad," he says.

"Well, that's the thing. I'm not sure how you'll be able to. Have a seat, would you?" Reluctantly, he obliges. "You left the military. And after thirty days you're marked a deserter. Now, you _know_ the consequences for deserting the Marines. You can't just change your name and expect them to stop looking for you. They'll find your records, your birth certificate, social security, everything. They'll track you down."

Tommy takes a sip of water. "No, they won't," he says.

"What…yes, they _will. _I'm surprised they didn't find you already." Paddy looks like the answer may be somewhere in the back of his mind but he doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Tommy leans forward, not giving a shit how this will sound, almost hoping it will be devastating. "My last name isn't the only thing I changed," is what he says, and waits for the light bulb to go off.

His father's eyes widen, the pale blue completely bewildered. "You…you didn't."

"I did." He didn't care about disappointing his father before. He doesn't now. He's sick and tired of hearing people call him a hero. He's no such thing; he knows what he is. "Didn't you wonder why I had no money? Getting new documents like that took up most of it. No, they won't find me. Not for a while. I can find a job. At some point I might be able to get a bank account or get an apartment. Thomas Conlon doesn't exist anymore. Understand?" He gets up and heads upstairs.

He knows what he is.

**F**

Tommy knows he doesn't look too bad when Brendan picks him up at the train station closest to his house. He's lost a little weight and definition and probably looks tired but with the layers of clothes he has on with the threat of oncoming Pennsylvania winter it's hard to tell.

He doesn't know which car is his brother's, so he has no choice but to wait until Brendan pops out and comes toward him, and he's not sure how much of which emotions he's feeling most, but they're all there. Anger? Yes, lots of it. Nervousness? You bet your ass. Happiness? Maybe. There's this surreal element seeing his brother, talking to him again, that is so much stronger than when he had experienced with Paddy, who he'd felt nothing but a defiant_ 'fuck you, old man, I'm an adult now and you couldn't hurt me if you tried' _feeling for. And for the life of him he's not sure what to do when Brendan walks up and stands in front of him, looking just as uncomfortable. But there's warmth. And Tommy's certain that, in spite of everything, in spite of all these years resenting him, his brother's a good man.

"Good to see you," Brendan finally says. "You look all right."

"Thanks. You, too."

It's probably the weakest ice-breaker in history, but it gets the job done. Brendan leads him to the car and opens the passenger door for him before getting in on the driver's side. "What, so I'm a woman now?" Tommy says as he gets in.

Brendan laughs and starts the car.

**E**

The place is beautiful; it's this clean, well-kept house in a clean, well-kept suburban neighborhood. It kind of amazes him how well-adjusted Brendan seems to be. They were raised in the same household, after all.

The light slanting through the window casts highlights on the top of the kitchen table where they sit down and Brendan offers to make some coffee.

"I still don't drink coffee, but you go ahead." He takes off his coat and looks around. He could never really adjust to this kind of life. It's like dysfunctional is all he knows; all he _could _know.

"How about some water?"

"Sure. Thanks."

And here he is; drinking water at high-countered island in the kitchen of the man who turned on him sixteen years ago and dislocated his shoulder two weeks ago and, somehow, is his big brother. The guy sitting calmly across from him as though none of this is fucked up, as though they're the same when they're _not._ Things can't go back to normal because they never _were _normal. He clenches his fist and it spreads soreness up his arm into his shoulder, which makes it all worse.

"So where is your friend from? What's the address?"

"Why'd we have to meet at your house?" Tommy asks. He doesn't want his water anymore; he wants to leave. It doesn't feel like he should be here.

"I thought it would be better than meeting at Dad's. Why?" He sounds so innocent. He was always so innocent. Why is he thinking like this? "Would you rather head to a diner or something?"

"No, I wouldn't rather head to a diner. Just…don't. Stop acting like…" he stops.  
>Brendan tries to go on. "I have about two million that I will never need. Ever. You said your friend's name was Manny?"<p>

"Yes." He clenches his fist again. He welcomes the soreness. It gives him resolve; it reminds him. "His name was Manny Fernandez." There are things he wants to say but can't; there are memories he wants to spout at Brendan, the reason he's out of the Marines and will never go back in. He can't and he won't explain it. It is all he can do to not get up and leave. As if that would help anything. They're miles away from the train station.

"Are you all right?" Brendan asks. Tommy looks at him like, _you can't seriously be that dense._

_ "No_. Not really. I'm a fucking cripple."

"You're not," Brendan says gently, but he looks away after meeting his brother's eyes and seeing nothing but cold anger and the pain of someone who doesn't like to feel. "Come on, Tommy. I'm trying to help. You know I'd take back what I did if I could. I can't help this family if you don't let me."

He knows that. He also knows he wants out of here. He sits back. "You're really willing to do this for me?" Brendan nods. He sighs and thinks about it. "Do you have a pen and paper?" he asks.

When Brendan brings back a pad of note paper and a pen, Tommy flips over the page with the grocery list and writes down an address. "It's in El Paso, Texas," he says. "This is the wife's name." He keeps scribbling, hoping his brother will be able to read it somehow. The man's a teacher. He's probably used to worst handwriting than his. "And give them this note. Don't read it. Just include it with the check." He's writing faster than ever now, unable to look at his brother. Part of him can't believe he's treating his brother like his father, but the other part of him thinks it makes perfect sense. His father beat the shit out of him on a regular basis as a kid. His brother gave him a one-time injury more serious than any his father had ever put on him.

"You want out already." Doesn't even pose it as a question. Smart man.

"You don't have to drive me back." He's almost done writing.

"How else are you going to get there?" Brendan takes his car keys out of his pocket and waits for his brother to finish writing and they both head out. The car ride is silent until the end, when Tommy says, "I really don't want you to read the note."

"I won't. I promise." Brendan sighs and makes the turn to the train station. "I just wish it could've gone better than this."

"Yeah." _Me, too. I wish I could stand to talk to you right now. I hope it changes_. "And Brendan?"

"Yeah?"

Tommy slides out of the car. Before he closes it he says, "Thank you."

**A**

He pulls in about a minute before Tess does and rips the two sheets of paper out of the notepad, concealing them in his jacket and stashing the notepad back before she gets into the kitchen. Stacey and Jennifer each hold one hand as she comes in and stops short at the sight of her husband looking desolate at the kitchen island, the lights off, sitting still.

"It didn't go well, did it?" she asks, sounding not surprised but purely compassionate.

He just shakes his head. "He has so much anger, you know?"

Tess nods. "It showed. When he was fighting." She goes to the fridge and gets two juice-boxes out of the fridge, handing one to each daughter and ushering them to the family room. When she comes back she slides onto the chair next to his. After a moment of just staying there with him she kisses the side of his face, along the jaw, and says, "Some wounds take a long time to heal."

**R**

_It took nearly a week for Paddy to go to a meeting when he got back to Pittsburgh. He didn't want to go back with his tail between his legs, back to day five because his son said a few things to him. He threw out his paper and tape-copies of _Moby Dick_. He never wanted to see that title again. He tried reading Hemmingway, but quickly realized it wasn't the best choice for someone who doesn't want to think about alcohol. He squirmed, fretted, obsessed; a dry drunk who tried very hard to not drive to the liquor store whenever he headed out, as usual, only without the support system he'd liked so much when he could proudly say he hadn't had a drink in nearly three years, where he went by "Patrick" because "Paddy" sounded like an active drinker's name and he could feel like a normal, functional, relatable human being who just couldn't tolerate alcohol._

_And all the while Tommy was incapacitated for two weeks, in the same house but not the same world, depressed and as foul-tempered as he'd ever been. Paddy finally did as his son had asked and avoided him, which just left him with AA. And the first day back he was certain people could tell immediately that his sober days were back in the single digits. He felt like he may as well have had the word "_Drunk_" branded on his forehead like the mark of Cain, and was silent throughout the meeting, avoided the sharing he usually did. There were enough people that it didn't seem like it would be a problem._

_An AA friend with five years of sobriety stopped him after the meeting as he tried to sneak out without being noticed. "Patrick, are you all right?"_

_Paddy nodded quickly but then thought, _Just who do you think you're fooling?_ "No." He sighed. The words tasted so bitter. He practically spat them out. "I relapsed."_

_The other man, Sid, winced in sympathy. "I'm sorry to hear that. I…I heard about what happened with the fight."_

"_That's not why I did," Paddy told him, and somehow froze, lost for a moment. Sid waited. He was quite willing to listen. It'd been a while since that happened. "You ever get that feeling that there are no second chances in life? Like, no matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter how much time passes, you cannot atone to the people you've harmed most?"_

"_Your sons?"_

"_My younger one, specifically. I didn't expect him to ever like me after everything that had happened. I was surprised he ever showed up to begin with. But…" he stopped. "I know the steps inside and out. '_We made direct amends to the people we've harmed._' But how can you make direct amends to someone who refuses to accept it? Someone who will always despise you? How can you live with that, if that someone is one of the people you've harmed the most?"_

_Sid paused. "Sometimes I think sobriety depends on the people around who you've known throughout your drinking days. If they can't forgive you, you might not be able to forgive yourself."_

"_I don't think I _should _forgive myself," Paddy says. "I feel like I'd be in denial if I thought what I did to my family was forgivable." _

"_For now, you just need to live with it. Understand that that part of you, the fucked-up addict in everyone who goes to these meetings, that imbalance in brain chemistry, has a hold over you. And that rage we all have somewhere inside us is touched and reaches new levels when it mixes with alcohol. The only way to keep that at bay right now is to not drink. I'm glad you're back, Patrick."_

**A**

The first thirty days are much harder the second time around. Paddy hears that that's the case for everyone who quits a substance, whether it be alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine, chocolate or what have you, only to go back to using it. He's pretty sure it has more to do with his age; he's going on sixty-seven, after all.

He thinks he really should have gotten a sponsor. He hadn't known the full extent of the damage he'd done to his wife or his younger son until that night he found his boy drinking on his porch, providing just enough details for him to understand, but he could have been more honest with himself. If he'd had a sponsor he could have called him or her up after Tommy finally shredded the last lingering threat of emotional stability he had, tore down his neat little world to make him realize he never really got things together. He could have listened to someone wiser but probably younger say "Let go and let God" while he could listen and think, _Blow it out your ass. _

It occurs to him that if he'd had a gun, he probably would have shot himself.

One thing occurs to him about Tommy that's not comforting—far from it—but somehow helps him at least try to let go of some of the guilt. What he endured as a child and as a teenager isn't the only thing that's scarred him. What Paddy Conlon, the raging drunk of a father did is not the only source of Tommy's rage, pain, and resentment. He's had his adulthood to show him and subject him to violence as well. He's been through war, through combat, and that's no small thing. He knows there are stories there. He's sure he'll never be able to hear them.

**R**

"Excellent. Keep going." David claims to be impressed with Tommy's progress so far. It's been six weeks now since he's gotten that sling off. Eight weeks since the fight. He takes advantage of whatever exercise he can do, frustrated with his body and trying everything he can do not fall any farther from where he had been six weeks and one day before. He has no idea why he feels this kind of pressure when it's clear he's not going to use it for much. It doesn't look like he'll be fighting again, maybe ever. But still he thinks, go running, and he does. He thinks, do five-hundred sit-ups, and he does.

The puny "weights" he started with have graduated to slightly heavier ones. "Any chance I'll be able to use actual weights at some point?" he asks.

"I won't have you bench-pressing, if that's what you mean."

"When will I be able to?"

David shakes his head. "You're not even two months healed. You need to be patient with this. You're doing the maximum amount that someone with your injury can do. Don't push it farther than it can go."

They work some more. "I got a job at the gym where I used to train."

"_What_?" David looks not only shocked, but furious. "Tommy, you can't risk healing over that. Find a job somewhere else."

"No, it's fine. I'm working the front desk for now." He remembers the look on the owner's face when he walked in asking to fill out an application. The man nearly shit his pants, he was so excited. "I haven't punched anything but air."

"Within a week you'll be able to progress all the way to a small bag, but that's all," David warns.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember." But day-to-day life is starting to get easier, and it helps that he knows that Pilar got at least something.

**A**

_Pilar Fernandez got a lot of bills, a lot of school notices, but this looked different. She noticed the sender's address—Brendan Conlon—and wrinkled her forehead. Tommy's brother? Since when did she know Tommy's brother? Hadn't he done his brother more harm than good? She'd watched "Sparta" after putting her kids to bed and seen it all, had peeked through the cracks in her fingers, unable to keep from covering her eyes. It was like watching _her_ brother get hurt._

_She opened the envelope anyway and saw a check and a sheet of notebook paper. She recognized the handwriting on the paper and pulled that out first. By the time she was done reading it she was almost in tears._

Dear Pilar,

I was going to send you the money. I wish more than anything I could've won it for you, for your kids, for Manny. I'm so sorry I failed.

I told my brother about it and he says he doesn't need all the money he won. He says he can give some of it up without a problem. I don't know if he really means it. It's weird. He bailed on me and my mom and then he dislocates my shoulder. Shouldn't I hate him or something? But I don't.

I'll always owe my life to Manny. I think we both know that. But maybe this is a start.

-Tommy

_She pulled the check out of the envelope and saw the number. Two million dollars. She blinked and counted the zeros. Again. And again. The number never changed. She sunk to the floor, the strength leaving her legs. When all three of her kids came downstairs and asked why she was crying, she simply grabbed all three of them at once and hugged them as fiercely to her as she could._


	3. Enter a Girl

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Nor do I own or advertise Alcoholics Anonymous. I do, however, own Jane. As someone who also started developing an addiction at an early age, I don't think Jane's a completely unreal or unrealistic character, nor a cliché. But if you disagree, let me know.

**Chapter Three: Enter a Girl**

Fast forward to two and a half months and things are progressing and improving in some ways. In others, they're the same as they've ever been.

Tommy wonders why his brother and father keep trying to patch things up. _You've made your goddamn bed_, he thinks as Paddy heads out to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and slowly but surely makes his way through the works of Charles Dickens, or thinks about his brother, who made his retirement speech a week after Sparta and has gone back to being Mr. Rogers. _Lie in it._ It's like they're sleepwalking or under some kind of delusion that they're still a family. Brendan has his new family, his wife and daughters; Paddy has church and twelve-step meetings that take place, from what he's heard, in the basements of churches. He had a kind of family in the Marines: a large group of foster brothers.

Part of him really would like to patch things up with Brendan, at least, and meet him halfway, but then again, they don't relate. Not really. They came from the same broken home, they have the same parents, but it ends there, as far as he's been able to tell.

_Did you serve in the Marines?_

_No, I didn't serve in the Marines._

_Then you're not my brother._

But he can't go back to the Marines. It would be a lie to say he's part of that family anymore. As far as he's concerned, he doesn't deserve to be a part of that family anymore. Right now he's in limbo; he's at the tail end of healing his shoulder; he's in the middle of getting back into shape, he's starting a normal, eight-to-ten hour-a-day job with people who seem to feel the need to kiss his ass, when on the first day he joined those same people were probably taking bets on how long it would take Mad Dog Grimes to knock him unconscious. He doesn't know who the hell he is outside of the military, outside of fighting, and the thought scares the shit out of him. All he can focus on is working, working out, going to PT sessions, easing his way into doing things that were impossible earlier: push-ups (on his knees at first, girly-style), weight-lifting (always fairly light weights), punching bags. He's lost quite a bit of strength and it's infuriating, especially when he's surrounded by people who months ago revered him as some kind of god. He hates watching everyone else spar and hates answering questions from people who recognize him from TV and all want to know what it felt like having his brother dislocate his shoulder, how it felt ripping the door off a tank, how it felt to knock out the same guy whose ass he kicked months earlier for a second time in the fastest knockout in Sparta's history, how it felt being a "War Hero" of all fucking things. So mostly he works in making sure everything's in stock. It feels like those first two weeks all over again, except with more physical freedom.

David is becoming the only person who's not the least bit intimidated by his now constantly-foul mood and tells him over and over not to push past the limits of whatever upper-body exercise he can do without risking injury.

"You're treading some dangerous waters, Tommy," David tells him. "You are pushing yourself to the absolute limit of what is safe. Just doing push-ups from the knees up is hard enough. Wait a little while to do them in plank position."

"On-the-knees push-ups are for old women."

"You fuck up your shoulder again and you'll be back to square one with that cast. That, I can guarantee."

Except in the desk-drawer in his old room he keeps a letter Brendan forwarded to him from El Paso.

_Dear Tommy,_

_Don't be sorry. That you went through all that for us, for Manny, for me, for the kids, is the greatest thing anyone has ever done for us. _

_Thank you so much. I just hope that you're healing okay. And I hope you find your way._

_-Pilar_

**F**

Seventy-nine days sober, and with the help of his sponsor, Sid, Paddy is starting to feel better about focusing more on getting sober instead of trying to achieve the impossible and reconcile with Tommy. His son's a big boy now. If he needs help he'll ask for it, like he did many long months ago.

"Look, he's obviously conflicted with guilt of his own," Sid tells him over the phone when Paddy gets a craving that threatens to turn him inside out if he doesn't hop into the car, drive to the liquor store, and buy as many bottles of whiskey as his trunk will hold and does what he can't believe he never did before and calls someone. "You need to understand, he's spent more than half his life away from you and fighting in Iraq includes quite a bit of trauma all on its own. Trust me, as a veteran of the Gulf War, I can testify. Detach yourself."

"I have detached myself," Paddy protests.

"Patrick, you just called me at eleven at night wanting to relapse and the first person you mentioned was Tommy. No, you haven't."

**E**

After that day, Brendan makes a promise to himself.

He'll wait. He's not going to beg for his brother's company if it means any more meetings like that. He wrote the check, included it with the letter he didn't read, and he sent it off. In return he received two short letters, one for him and one to forward to Tommy, and one that he didn't read either. The one addressed to him was one line: _Thank you for your charity. You must really love your brother_.

In retrospect he thinks it was stupid to believe things could heal that quickly, with someone who casts blame on everyone, including himself. Or did he ever really think that?

_You must really love your brother_. He does. He still dreams about that fight, hears the breaking and wakes up in a cold sweat. But right now that's not enough. Right now it's better just to leave him alone. He has his job back and teaching high school physics full-time while raising two young girls is all he can handle right now.

**A**

Paddy's never been to the meeting on Jefferson Street and winces when he opens the door and sees everyone already sitting down. The clock on the back wall kindly informs him that he's five minutes late.

Heads turn his way and he sees a few embarrassed, empathetic little smiles and a couple of empty seats. He takes the one closest to the door.

The leader is a man who bears a vague resemblance to George Carlin—the mellow, pot-smoking, "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television"-era Carlin, and with the same benign presence. "Today we have someone speaking. Jane," he nods to a young woman sitting beside him, "who will start off the discussion. Jane, you have the floor for ten minutes."

The woman, the girl, really, smiles at the man as she nurses a Styrofoam cup of tea in her almost trembling hands. She couldn't be a day over twenty-five and could be as young as twenty, barely or not even old enough to drink legally. She has these big, wide-set dark eyes that, as she peers nervously around the group, make her look just a little like a wounded bird or a lost puppy, one who bites her lip. She's just a girl. But then again, she's not. Because she is _here._ And there is something in her presence that strikes him as ageless. He's seen her at a few meetings here and there, where until nearly three months ago he was often one of the more vocal people. He can't remember her speaking at any of them. It's good to know she has a voice.

She clears her throat and her voice starts off high—out of anxiety, he's sure—when she says, "Okay. Hello. My name is Jane—"

"Hi, Jane," the others in the room say in unison.  
>She smiles a little. "I apologize in advance. I'm not a good public speaker <em>at all<em>, but I'll try my best. I'm an alcoholic and drug user. Today I have been clean and sober for one year."

There's applause and a few whistles from throughout the circle. A year is a big deal.

"I recently turned twenty-one," Jane continues, "and it struck me as kind of funny that everyone else, you know, marks their twenty-first birthday by celebrating buying liquor, going to bars, painting the town red and whatnot, and I ended up going to three different meetings on my birthday. Then again, I started really early. I was fourteen. Call it a natural talent." There's tentative laughter. It doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest. In fact, she runs with it, saying, "Hey, there are prodigies in sports, math, art. I was a child drinking prodigy." There's a little more laughter.

She then takes a sip of tea and sets the cup down. "And, um, I've thought about each step and what it meant for me in this year, and one year isn't a long time in the grand scheme of things, but so far it's the first step that I think about the most. Actually admitting that I'm an alcoholic. I think part of being an addict is learning to look the other way in one's own life, because the truth is just standing right there, so hard _not _to see, but it's too terrible to acknowledge. When I was drinking, I found a way to question things that had such obvious answers. Things like, 'Is it bad that it's a school morning and I'm so hung-over that I just threw up in the shower?'" She winces. "Nice image, I know. Things like," she swallows hard. She voice seems to close up, but she forces the next words out with such shame, and quiet though everyone can hear exactly what it is, "asking myself, 'Is it…" the next word comes out in nearly a whisper, "_rape_… if I was too drunk to say no?'"

Paddy sees it. He sees the pain, the moments a person will try so hard to push to the back of his mind, only to have to force it out into the open. He closes his eyes for a moment. The things he wishes he could forget. But he has to remember. The things that make him want to drink are the ones that if he wants to stay sober must admit them.

"I felt more and more powerless. Against the people who waited until I was well past drunk to do things to me, against the depression, the cycle of drinking and getting sick, trying to make myself feel better with weed and doing it all over again, all through high school. I find it amazing that I was able to graduate high school, even though I was held back a year. I knew the drinking was a real issue. I knew that I was screwed up somehow—there was no way even I could have denied that. But I didn't know what else to do other than try and show up for school often enough to pass each grade and get wasted enough to forget that I had a problem.

"The first time I got help was when I was nineteen." Jane clears her throat. "After I tried to take my life. With pills. It was the summer I graduated high school and had no idea what to do with my life. All my friends…if they _were_ friends…were going to college. I had nothing, _nothing, _to look forward to. No one who would care if I left the face of the earth. You know, that's one thing that was really hard to grasp when I first started getting sober. Realizing and admitting not just that I am an alcoholic, but that I'm also a worthwhile person who deserves to be alive and happy. It seemed impossible that I could be both.

"Anyway, I was found in just enough time that I got rushed to the hospital, and from there I was sent to a psychiatric ward for several months. It was there that I met people who talked to me about alcoholism. I thought I was way too young for that. For the name, I mean. My habits fit the description but I wasn't even old enough to drink. Not legally, anyway, so the word 'alcoholic' just, um, seemed _wrong_. But at the same time I knew it was somehow right. An alcoholic doesn't call it quits just because she's getting nauseous or feeling a loss of control or coordination. An alcoholic doesn't just drink to take the edge off, or to be social, or just to enjoy a drink. An alcoholic drinks to try to find an escape. A break from reality. At least I did. And I started to realize this more and more because while in that psychiatric ward, I couldn't drink. It was hell. I had my first taste of having to deal with my emotions and speaking in groups instead of drinking back all the anger I felt. And there was a _lot_ of anger. And depression, but that wasn't new. I got diagnosed with that as well.

"I was released just after my twentieth birthday. And first thing I did, after getting a diagnostic telling me I was an alcoholic, was get drunk. I crashed with a couple of people from high school and wouldn't you know it I wound up in the hospital again to have my stomach pumped. Again. It was binge-drinking after several months of not being allowed to drink, and I got a mild case of alcohol poisoning." She scoffs a little. "Like alcohol poisoning could actually be mild.

"My mother sent me to a rehab center in Pittsburgh—I'd lived in D.C. all my life, and living hundreds of miles away seemed like a good idea for us all. It's the greatest thing she's ever done for me. I was terrified at first, waiting for people to tell me things like, 'Oh, you have no self-control.' Or: 'You have an alcohol demon and need to be exorcised.'" People laugh but she goes on. "Instead people told me, 'What you have isn't your fault. Your brain happens to be wired differently. There's something in your brain chemistry that reacts to alcohol, and self-control has nothing to do with it. It's not a punishment or a demon.'" She gives kind of a laugh. "What a relief that was. No judgment of any kind. Just a bunch of other people who struggled constantly with the urge to drink or to use, people who hated themselves, who didn't know what their place was, people trying to survive. I'd been in circle discussions at that psychiatric ward, but this was different. We came from separate backgrounds but we all shared that one thing: we were all addicts.

"I stayed in Pittsburgh after being released. It just seemed like the logical thing to do if I wanted to be sober and start a new chapter in my life. It was my equivalent of going away to college, I guess. I'm glad I did. It's at meetings in Pittsburgh where I found my sponsor, Dionne," she nods to a middle-aged, heavy-set Black woman sitting near her and smiles. The woman smiles back. "And she's helped me through the darkest times, been there for me. Everyone I've shared with, been to meetings with, has, does, and will continue to play a vital part in my sobriety. We help each other get sober, and it goes around to help us. Sharing that pain, sharing the things we don't really want to share because we're programmed to believe that drinking is a best-kept-secret, is what helps us stay dry." She looks over at the man beside her and the clock. "And thank you, everyone today, for letting me share."

"Thanks for sharing."


	4. An Encounter

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. And CCAC is short for Community College of Allegheny County, a community college in Pittsburgh.

**Chapter Four: An Encounter**

_The manager at the Oldies Diner liked to insist that the form-fitting black dress "uniforms" the waitresses had to wear were a simple gimmick; a throwback to the 1950s soda fountain look. Jane felt differently. It wasn't this so much that bothered her but the fact that the manager seemed to hire only waitresses, and every one of them was under the age of thirty-two and under a size ten, with breasts just large enough to show even a little cleavage in their outfits. Just a gimmick, indeed._

_It was safe to say that she despised waitressing. It bothered her having act like she wasn't completely repulsed by the creepy old man who always sat in her section and stared at her during the hours he spent each day in the diner over coffee and a single slice of pie or cake. It bothered her when drunken men who wanted a meal to soak up the alcohol in their systems seemed compelled to write their numbers down on their bills before leaving. It bothered her when people told her to take back a dish because it was too salty, wasn't salty enough, didn't have enough bacon bits sprinkled on top, etcetera. Hell with it. The entire job description got to her._

_But it paid the bills and customers tipped better when their servers were dressed in something more creative than khakis and a restaurant tee-shirt._

_Tonight was a particularly slow night. The creepy old man was gone for the evening—thank God—as well as everyone else in her section and her shift was going to end within twenty minutes, when the short hand struck eleven. She counted the seconds, sorting clean silverware and folding napkins in an empty booth. At least until her manager came up and said, "It's a ghost town here. You may as well go home for the night."_

"_Is that all right?" Jane asked, thinking, can I? Can I? Can I?_

"_Yeah. Go on home."_

"Why are you changing out of your uniform? It's not like you work at a strip club." Courtney, one of the other waitresses, is also getting ready to quit for the evening.

From her place in the bathroom stall as she pulls up her jeans, she says, "Trust me, if you lived where I live and don't have a car, you'd be doing the same thing." She slips out of her (sensibly-low-heeled) shoes and into her sneakers. Just in case at some point she needs to run instead of walk.

"I can get changing shoes, but the dress isn't a problem."

"Yeah it is. It makes people think I have boobs." She comes out of the stall and slips on her jacket, stuffing her uniform and shoes into her bag. "Everyone wants a small, feminine target. Well, almost everyone."

Five nights a week Jane takes a bus from a block away from the diner and gets off at a stop six blocks away from her crappy one-room apartment in a part of town Courtney refers to as "the Anacostia of Pittsburgh." Coming from D.C. and having spent time in Anacostia before, Jane can safely say that that's an exaggeration. But only a little one. As a result, she keeps a can of mace in her jacket pocket when she walks those six blocks at night.

After a block or so she senses someone following her. Ignoring her better judgment, she glances behind her and sees that yes, in fact, there is a man following her: a White man with a gaunt face, a shaved head and an enormous tattoo on his neck, with a small swastika just above it. A skinhead. He's practically a poster-child for dangerous people to avoid day or night, and he's staring right at her. She starts walking faster, feeling for the mace in her jacket pocket and feeling its reassurance.

Behind her she hears the man's pace speed up to match hers and she tries to outpace him without giving him the impression that she's fleeing, but that's a losing battle. She gave him the satisfaction of her fear the second she looked back at him. And she _is_ afraid. The fear spurs her to break into a run, going faster than she originally ever would have, but he's not going to give up. He catches up to her and grabs her by the arms.

So much for reaching for the can of mace.

She struggles all the same, because there's no way her body will cooperate with this person who has her arms pinned. She flails, squirms, stomps on one of his feet and he grunts and tightens his grip on her, closing in.

"Get the fuck away," she warns. And she inwardly winces. How the hell could she possibly think that she's the one calling the shots right now?

"That supposed to be a threat, sweetheart?" the man says, laughing.

She knows what to do. She's pretty sure she knows what to do. His grip is bruising her wrists but with a last spurt of strength she forces herself around in this person's grasp and brings her knee up hard and fast, not quite getting him in the place she needed to but along the inner thigh, very close, turning her head away as she hears him grunt and feels his hands fly away from her wrists. When she runs it's on pure adrenaline and complete terror that makes an elite sprinter out of her but she doesn't make it far.

_How the hell was he able to catch up to me? _She thinks as the man nearly falls on her, hold tighter than ever.

"Take my purse," she says, squeaks, croaks, her throat constricted. It won't be much of a loss; her wallet, cell phone and apartment key are in her jacket and jeans-pocket. All she has in her purse is her work uniform and matching shoes. "Take the fucking purse."

"No, I think I'll take more than that," the man hisses in her ear, and as he presses himself against her back she feels the butt of a gun against her side as he drags her to an alleyway. "Stupid cunt."

Her voice returns long enough for her to let out a two second scream that's cut short when the man forces a sweaty hand over her mouth and pushes her, face-first, into a wall, removing his hand just in time to avoid scraping it against the brick the way it scratches against Jane's face. "Now, just be quiet and it will all be over quickly." She feels something else that's certainly not a gun poke against the small of her lower back.

If there's anything her mother has ever stressed if such an event ever came up, it was that if you are still physically capable of screaming, scream. Better to get shot than to stay quiet and wait for things to get worse. She starts to scream again, voice muffled by the force of the side of her face pressed against the wall.

What neither of them noticed at this time of night was a man walking out of the gym across the street who has seen most of what's gone in in the last minute, and is making his way across the street. Neither of them sees this man or expects him to come up behind the skinhead with the gun just as he is about to strike the woman with it, or for this person grab the skinhead by the throat, yanking him backwards. From her place against the wall, Jane can't see a thing but when she's suddenly, inexplicably free she turns and sees a complete stranger yank the man with the gun back with enough force that the gun falls to the ground, and this guy punches him so hard across the jaw that there is a breaking sound that sounds even worse than it looks. The man who's just thrown the punch yanks the skinhead back up after he's crumpled the ground and punches him in the face with his other hand.

He then tells the skinhead who probably wants to know what happened to his gun to get lost and never pull that shit again and shoves him on his way. The gun-man, scuttling and clutching his jaw, is more than willing to comply.

Jane's heart is racing. She's terrified. She's exhilarated. She's just seen Clark Kent turn into Superman without once changing out of his sweatpants. She was about to get raped and probably worse by a man with a gun two blocks away from her apartment and instead she's looking at someone who's saved her ass (in more ways than one, she supposes) and perhaps her life. The moment she finds herself able to speak, she's babbling in a voice nearly a full octave higher than normal.

"Ohmigod, thank you. Thank you so much. I thought I was a goner back there. I…" She's breathless and sounds as if she's just sucked on a helium balloon but she doubts that really matters. For a moment she freezes, because it may just be the night or her imagination, but this man has some of the broadest shoulders she's ever seen supporting a thick neck. No wonder he was able to knock the guy's lights out. "You're big."

She blushes. That wasn't meant to come out. Thankfully, the man ignores it. "Are you all right?" he asks. "It looks like your face is bleeding a little."

Jane wipes her hand on the bridge of her nose, her cheek, and sure enough, there's a little blood. She doesn't give a shit about that right now. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Scared shitless, but good. Thank you so much. I think you just saved my life." Her heart is pounding in her chest and she's still shaking but breath comes back to her, slowly but surely. "I was walking home from work…"

"How nearby are you?" he asks.

"About three blocks down," she says. She points in the direction of her apartment. "That way."

And the man says something that completely floors her. He says, "I'll walk you back."

She can feel a reddening at the tips of her ears. She's sure she looks like a deer caught in the headlights when she stammers, "I, uh, that, you don't have to—"

The man seems to interpret her reaction as fear that he'll attack her as well. "Don't worry. Don't worry. I'm heading in that direction, too. There's nothing more to it than that."

"I, well, um, thank you." Oooh. Such a clever response.

They start walking. "Where do you work?" the man asks.

Her brain is still playing catch-up. "The, ah, the Oldies Diner. It's this place on West Avenue with a fifties theme. I'm a waitress," she adds with a little embarrassment. "How about you? How did you find yourself here just in the nick of time?"

"I was coming out of the gym across the street," he tells her. "Where I work." He looks at her, gives her the once-over. "You starting to feel better? You aren't shaking as much."

"Yeah. Thanks…I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?"

The man says, "It's Tommy."

"Oh. Well, hello, Tommy, I'm Jane." She stops and extends her hand.

As he shakes it he says, "You're not from Pittsburgh, are you?"

"I'm not. I'm from D.C."

"D.C? _Washington_, D.C?" The way he pronounces it, it sounds a little more like_ Worshington._

"Yeah, Washington, D.C. I grew up just outside of Dupont Circle, actually, not the White House or anything. Spent some time in Southeast D.C. and a little in Columbia Heights."

"What brought you to East Pittsburgh? College, or something?"

Jane hesitates. She's so not going to go into that with a stranger. "No, not college. I mean, I take classes part-time at CCAC, but that's not why I'm here. There were circumstances that brought me to Pittsburgh and there was really nothing for me back in D.C, so I figured I may as well stay."

"A man?" She almost hears a grin in Tommy's voice, and she finds the idea so ridiculous she can't help but laugh.

"No, definitely wasn't a man. Or a woman. Or any person. It was more to get away from where I'd been. But you_ are_ from Pittsburgh?"

"Yeah. Born and raised. I moved away when I was fourteen and came back several months ago." He says this in a tone of voice that adds a silent request not to ask any further into it, and she doesn't. Instead she looks over at him again. He looks to be in his late twenties, early thirties. He's not tall, but he still has a large frame and cuts an imposing figure.

"So you work at that gym. Are you a personal trainer?"

"Nah. I got injured not that long ago, and I'm not really certified as a personal trainer anyway. I just help keep the place running right."

"You got injured?" He sure as hell doesn't _look_ injured.

"Dislocated my shoulder two and a half months ago." He hesitates for a mighty long time before elaborating. "I was helping move some shit down stairs, something slipped, I fell, well, you know how it goes." He's looking down, looking kind of embarrassed. She can't quite believe it. The man who just punished the hell out of a guy's jaw can't have gotten injured so recently and still be able to something like that.

"I would not have been able to tell," Jane says after a moment. "Shit, is your shoulder all right? Which one was it?"

With his left arm he slowly rubs his right. "My right. And it's fine. I didn't just undo two months of healing. Just make sure you don't get into that position again, all right?"

"I wasn't planning on it."

"Can you find someone to drive you home from now on or something?"

Jane winces. "Hate to say it, but probably not. I'll ask around." They near her apartment. "Hey, listen, Tommy. I know it's not much, but the diner where I work, it's a twenty-four hour diner. I work two to eleven Monday through Friday. Feel free to come by sometime for a meal or something. On me."

Tommy looks as if he's about to smile, but can't quite make it. "What if I order the most expensive thing on the menu?" he asks.

Jane smiles back. For the life of her she didn't think she'd smile so soon after what happened tonight. "Well, if I worked at a fancy restaurant that offered lobster and caviar I might just be a little intimidated. But I'd still stand by my offer."

She stops on the sidewalk outside her apartment complex. "Thank you again. So much. And, you know, like I said, feel free to stop by when the mood strikes you."

Tommy nods and glances at the apartment. "Yeah. I will. Good night." Again, he looks as if he almost smiles and heads off.

A superhero doesn't need a fancy skintight suit. All he needs is a pair of sweatpants and an East Pittsburgh accent.

As Jane heads up to her apartment room, she thinks that she doesn't believe in fate and, despite AA's emphasis on belief in a higher power, isn't a big fan of divine intervention. Still, it's surreal. She could have been badly harmed tonight were it not for some of the luckiest timing and just the right person to come along.

**F**

"How are you today?" David asks as Tommy comes in for another physical therapy session. He's looking better and better. He's made sure throughout the healing process to not let his body fall any further than he could help from where he'd been before and losing a fair amount of definition was unavoidable, but the definition in his shoulders and back is starting to return to its former state. It'll be a while before he gets his body to look exactly the way it did the day of the fight, but he's already progressing.

"I'm good. I threw a couple punches yesterday that knocked a guy out and probably fucked up his jaw. One of them with my _left _arm, but still."

David freezes, thinking for a moment that he's heard wrong. He's one second away from killing one of his own clients. He takes a deep breath, hoping Tommy's just fooling with him. "You were in a match? You're trying to spar again already?"

Tommy shakes his head. "No. It wasn't with a fighter. It was at night. I came out of the gym and saw this guy attacking this girl. It looked like he was going to do something worse than just take her money. It's not like I could call the cops or something, she needed help right away."

"That's the best reason to throw a punch at someone," David says, and slowly eases up. Tommy seems to be moving all right, but he'd be lying if he told Tommy there wouldn't be any repercussions.

"She was walking home from work. A cute girl is always going to be in danger walking alone at night in that part of the 'Burgh."

"A _cute _girl, huh?" David teases him, and lets up to move onto something more important. "But how's your shoulder feeling?"

"Good. Kinda sore. I guess it hurt when I punched that guy, but with the adrenaline going, it was harder to notice. It's letting up. I mean, it was just one punch with this arm-the harder punch was with my left-and it wasn't against a professional fighter or anything. He wasn't expecting to get hit."

"Don't pull that shit again," David says. "'Kay. Stretch your arm out like this," he demonstrates.

As he does so: "Hey, you ever been to a place called the 'Oldies Diner'?"

"The place on West Avenue? Yeah. Sort of a gimmicky little place that serves 1950s American diner food. Not as gimmicky as that place in 'Pulp Fiction', but the same kind of ballpark. Why?"

"It's where this girl works. She invited me to come by for a free meal."

David grins. "Go for it, man. The food's pretty good. Personally, I like their steak, but seriously, if a nice-looking girl offers you a free meal, go for it. It'll give you something better to do than completely disregard all the rules I set out for you. You set yourself back at least a week. And it'll be even longer before you can do plank push-ups again."


	5. Not Flirting

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Just a quick warning and apology: the narration shifts between Tommy's and Jane's perspectives a few times, sometimes without warning. The character Carlos is inspired by a friend of mine of the same name, whose warmth and humor can brighten anyone's day.

**Chapter Five: Not Flirting**

Tommy puts it off for a couple of days and doesn't ask himself why. Doesn't ask himself what he's so scared of. He's not scared. It wasn't like Jane was hitting on him. If she'd been hitting on him she'd have invited him up to her apartment and yeah, he probably would've gone, aching shoulder and all. And one one-night-stand later they'd be even. And he probably wouldn't be thinking about her. Instead he feels like there are too many thoughts rolling around, all shouting for attention. They get at him whenever he's still and a good run or, better yet, a good fight keeps them quiet. At least for a little while.

So it pisses him off a little that this thought occurs to him while he's out running. That Jane is the most interesting that's happened to him since Sparta.

And if it turns out he's wrong and she's not, he gets a free dinner of whatever he wants, they can call it even, and he won't have to give it another thought. Either way he can't lose, can he?

At work, he tells Fenroy he'll need to end his shift early. Like, around ten. Maybe quarter of.

Fenroy's more than willing to let him, but goes, "So, the reason you're quittin' out early, she blonde, brunette, or redhead?"

"Hate to say it, but you're mother's gone gray by now," Tommy says, dons his jacket, and heads out.

**F**

Three days after the incident, as she heads to the kitchen to pick up an order, she sees him walk through the parking lot. The diner doesn't have a seating hostess, and she's the first employee he sees. Good. She doesn't want another server to steer him in the wrong section and make him pay for his own meal.

"Hi," he says as he walks in. There's the same five o'clock shadow and cold gray-blue eyes. In the light she can see his features better and he's all full lips and good bone structure, leaving her thinking that he's actually better-looking than Clark Kent; it's a thought for which she mentally slaps herself.

Jane knows how silly she looks when she gives him a coy smile and says, "Hi, welcome to the Oldies Diner. Can I help you find a seat?" but as long as she's trying to play up the corniness for whatever comic effect it might have, it can't hurt that much.

A ghost of a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he sees her in her uniform and with her short hair pulled back in a way that makes her look far less disheveled than when he saw her last. "Sure," he says, and follows her into her section, where she guides him into the nicest booth.

"Could I start you off with something to drink?"

"Water's fine."

He makes her a little nervous. Maybe it's in his stance. After she's given him his water and taken his order, she wonders, should she just leave the guy the hell alone, just cover his check when he asks for it and that's all? Her section has enough action in it as it is.

But no, it seems like people start dispersing in her section when he comes in, and she bites the bullet fairly early on when he's eating and asks how he's enjoying his meal.

"It's pretty damn good," he says, tapping his fork against the table.

She bites her lip; one of her various nervous habits. "How's your shoulder?"

"Not bad," he says, and gestures across the booth from him for her to sit down. After looking at the rest of the section—they seem okay, her manager is nowhere to be found, and Tommy's come at just the right time for the Friday dinner crowd to call it a night; people usually leave for after-dinner drinks or, for those with lesser imaginations or children, bed around this time—and obliges him.

"Yeah?" she asks, sliding in.

"Yeah." He takes another bite, and when that's done he asks, "So what's with the get-up?"

Jane glances down at her dress, the buttons down the front tight enough to push her breasts forward and make her waist look narrower than it really is, the nametag on the right breast pocket, the two extra earrings she takes out for work, and knows what he means. "It's a gimmick, y'know," she says dumbly. She shakes her head and elaborates. "All the waitresses have to wear them. The manager says it's kind of a throwback to 1950s and early 60s fashion, you know, to keep up with the diner's whole motif. I mean, there's a jukebox against the wall there"—she points.

"Kind of hard not to miss that," Tommy agrees. "You don't like it, though, do you?"

Jane glances around to see if anyone needs anything immediately. The answer is no to both questions. "It's waitressing," she says. "And if you're not cut out for waitressing no restaurant is going to change that." She lowers her voice. "And no, I don't like this particular job, either."

"The outfits?"

Jane nods. "Well, that's part of it." She clears her throat. "Would you like a refill on your water?"

"Thank you." Jane immediately takes the water and gets up, thinking, _damn it, you're not here to make a fool of yourself. Just shut up. _She gives him his water and after she gives another table their bill and checks up on a third who's getting ready to leave, she turns to him again and asks him how he's doing, as he's close to finished.

"Just as good as before." He leans back in his seat, glances at the clock. "Your shift ends at eleven?"

"That's right."

"Gives you about ten minutes." He drums his fingertips against the table. "You been able to get a ride home?"

"Well, no," she admits. "Most of the other people who get off around this time live downtown."

It's a couple of seconds before he says, "I'll take you." Blunt, straight-forward, yet somehow chivalric. Just like last time.  
>"Really?"<p>

"Really." She half expects him to grin, to tease, her, but he doesn't.

She thinks. "Well, all that leaves is the check." She grins as his eyes widen as if to say, _You deceitful bitch. _She continues to smile a little to herself as she digs into her apron and fishes out twenty dollars. "Steak dinner, sirloin cut with a side of two vegetables, that's eighteen dollars, water's complimentary so that's no extra charge." She sets the bill down on the table. "And a healthy twenty-percent tip—it's twenty-percent nowadays—rounded up to the nearest dollar is twenty-two dollars." She takes out another two and sets them down, glances his way, grins, and sticks the bills back into her apron. "Thank you."

From the glance she spares he leans back and looks at her with what may very well be amusement.

When she heads past the kitchen for the employee bathroom, Carlos, one of the cooks and one of Jane's only [relatively] normal, non-AA friends, says, "Hey, Michael is stopping by. We'll be able to give you a ride back tonight."

Jane glances at the door. "Well, that's really sweet, but I actually got offered a ride."

Courtney comes in, hearing the last bit, saying, "Yeah, from some guy who looks like a homeless underwear model."

Carlos's eyes widen and he grins. "Ooh. I wanna see."

Jane rolls her eyes and when she leaves the employee bathroom, changed and ready to leave, Carlos grabs her by the arm.

"Tell me that guy's your boyfriend," he says, voice urgent, and with a lisp that makes him sound like Paul Lynd, and which makes her smile as she shakes her head.

"Nah, just someone I ran into a few days ago. And say hi to Michael for me. I wouldn't mind getting together for coffee again. Have a good night."

**E**

The bus outside the diner comes within a minute of waiting, and as they get on, Tommy remarks, "I _thought_ you had more piercings."

Jane brushes her fingertips along the extra small metal hoops around the upper cartilage of her right ear. Instead of boring him about how she used to have several more, she just says, "Oh, well, yeah. The diner doesn't allow more visible piercings than the standard two earrings or visible ink. At least I don't have neck or forearm tattoos."

"You got any ink?"

As they sit next to each other towards the back, she says, "Yeah, two, but they're in places that are easily covered up." She feels the tips of her ears burn as Tommy looks over at her, probably waiting for an explanation and instead of offering one she looks down to hide a smile. She notices a few people stare at them—or more accurately, stare at _him_—but she ignores it when she sees he does.

To break the lull, Tommy asks, "You're in college part-time, right? What's your major?"

"Haven't declared one," Jane says. "I mean, based on my classes, I think I'm labeled a sociology major."

"Sociology? What classes do you have to take for that?"

"Not sure. I'm in political science, Spanish, and women's studies."

"Wait, _women's studies_? Why would you need that? You_ are_ a woman."

Jane laughs. "It's kind of different. It's more like a class about society than a guide to understanding women. How about you? Did you go to college?"

Tommy looks at her as if she has just asked him if he's pregnant. "You serious?" When she shrugs, he says, "Nah. Never went to college." There's a pause. "I enlisted in the military on my eighteenth birthday. That's one hell of a compliment, though, thinking I might've gone to college." He tilts his head back a little and slides his eyes her way.

She hasn't seen an actual, honest-to-god smile from him yet. He's come close a couple of times but doesn't quite make it. He almost laughed, at most, perhaps once, but fell short. And she can't help but feel compelled to take him further, to get a real grin, a real laugh out of him. He sits, tense as a cat ready to pounce even when he seems almost relaxed.

"You were in the military?" she asks.

Instead of sharing anecdotes like the military people in her family, he clams up. "I was. I'm not anymore." He has a tone of finality, makes it clear he'd rather not get into it.

But she pushes her luck. "For how long?" she asks.

"Twelve years," he says.

"So you're thirty?" So she'd guessed right.

"Yeah. You?"

Now feeling unbearably juvenile, she says, "I'm twenty-one."

He nods to himself. They're not that far apart in age, not really. "Twenty-one's a pretty good year," he tells her.

Jane shrugs again. "We'll see."

The bus reaches their stop, and almost as soon as they get off they notice a cat trot out of the shadows and trail alongside them with dignity and self-righteous hauteur emanating from its scrawny frame.

"That is one ugly cat," Tommy says. The cat sticks his nose up in the air, makes a, "hmmph!" sound at him and keeps going.

"You know, a cat's collarbone isn't connected to any other bone in its body?" Jane says.

And this floors him. Because A) no, he _didn't_ know, and B) because it seems to come out of left field. Yeah, there's a cat following them, but who knows shit like that? His shoulder's flared up more than a few times since their first encounter, and the soreness makes him say, "That sounds so good right now."

Jane widens her eyes. "You sure your shoulder's healing okay?"

"Yeah. It's just…how'd you know that cat thing?"

"Just something I heard. My dad was an electrician, worked at the National Zoo for a few years. When I visited, I ended up learning a lot of weird things about animals." She says it so casually.

_My dad was a boxer. He had one hell of a right hook whether or not he was fighting in the ring. _ "You been to the one in Pittsburgh?"

"Nah. Haven't had the time. I've been here a year and haven't seen much more than East Pittsburgh. Is it good?"

"I went there a couple of times as a little kid. Yeah, I'd say so." And damn it, the cat's still with them. "Maybe it smells food on you."

Jane looks at it and grins. "Probably. He'll give up when he realizes I don't have any with me."

The cat looks up at her and gives what he guesses sounds like a cheerful mew. "Or maybe it just likes you."

"You ever have a cat?" she asks, still looking down at the skinny mess of patchy fur that seems to want her attention.

"Nah. I never had a pet. You?"

"No, but I always wanted one."

"You like animals."

Jane looks back up at him. "Sure. It's kind of hard not to like animals. They're weird, they're funny, and the really amazing thing is, no matter how ugly they are as babies, they're still somehow cute." Tommy scoffs a little. "No, really, think about it. Like, take a newborn baby bird—hell, a newborn baby _vulture_. One of the ugliest things in the world. They remind me of those horrible little monsters from the movie 'Gremlins' that gave me nightmares when I was a kid. But I guarantee you that you put them in their nest, wanting to be fed, and at least a few people will look at them and go, 'Awww.'"

And there it is: Tommy finally smiles. Jane likes it very much; his teeth are far from perfect, but for some reason that makes her like it even more. "That's a hell of a theory," he tells her.

"Not a theory," Jane tells him. "It's a proven fact." Is it okay that he both makes her nervous and somehow enough at ease that she feels no qualms talking to him like this? Or nervous enough that she won't shut up? Is it okay, at least on the grounds that it's not interpreted as flirting? And what if it _is_ interpreted as flirting? She bites her lips as she smiles, not quite looking at him, thinking about the possibility of an awkward silence from here to her apartment. He doesn't expect her to invite him up, does he?

As she shoots a glance at him, she guesses not. If he'd felt entitled, he probably would've hinted at it the night they met, as his way of getting paid back. He's not all that taller than she, so why does she feel that he is? Why does she feel minute next to him? He makes her uneasy, although the sensation is not altogether unpleasant.

They're both silent for close to a minute, her apartment drawing ever-nearer. That cat trails away from them, and Tommy asks, "You more of a cat person or a dog person?"

Jane shrugs. "Depends on the animal. If I had to choose, I'd say cats who act like dogs."

"What do you mean?"

"You know, they act goofy, chase their tails, are really affectionate and always seem happy to see you, they make a lot of noise. I mean, with dogs it's expected, but in a cat it's hilarious because it seems so unusual."

He tilts his head at her, eyes narrowed, probably wondering what she's smoking. "What about a dog that acts like a cat?"

"Well_ those_ guys are straight up assholes." Unless her ears are playing tricks on her, she could swear she hears a soft bark of a laugh. "How about you? Cats or dogs?"

"Dunno. Dogs, I guess." And he leaves it at that. Yeah, she'd never gotten the impression that he was much of a talker.

They reach her apartment. "Well, thanks again," Jane says, stepping back as she turns to him. "And I hope your shoulder feels better."

"Yeah, it will. And thanks for the meal and everything." He drifts away. "Take care."

"You too," she says, waves as he heads off. She catches how he glances behind him a couple of times at her. As she heads up to her room, she gets a sense of regret. She's probably not going to see him again, unless she scrounges up the money to join his gym—unlikely, since it seems geared exclusively toward men. And for some reason this bothers her, leaves a bad taste in her mouth as she gets ready for bed. And it hits her: she's already attracted to him.

_Aw, hell._


	6. First Date

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Having never been to the Pittsburgh Zoo myself, I may have taken a few liberties. For instance, I don't know if the gorillas are in an exhibit behind glass, but I did some research to try to keep it a little realistic. On another note, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed and somewhat pissed off that "Warrior" was ignored for the Golden Globes.

**Chapter Six: First Date**

In rehab Jane had heard certain things stressed to her, and at meetings heard those things reinforced. Among them had been "no major life changes for a year." And even with only a year of sobriety "major changes" shouldn't be much more major than getting a new sofa or changing brands of toilet paper. And dating? Best left out of the picture for at least two, preferably three years. To ignore this and start dating after only one year was discouraged.

Jane figured none of this would be any problem. She didn't have the money for a better apartment, or at least an apartment in a better part of town. She hated her job but wasn't interested in quitting when it paid a pretty good amount for someone who didn't yet have a college degree. Her experiences with the opposite sex on any physical level had been, at best, unpleasant, leaving a bad taste in her mouth (pun partially intended) and blurred, painful, drunken memories she wished she had never created, assuming she was able to remember. She didn't picture herself going down that route for a quite a while yet. Or at least, that's what she thought until Wednesday afternoon.

**F**

Lester and Bob love the diner in the afternoons, when the sun hits the windows right and they feel like they're teenagers again, ready to cruise the boulevard that never existed in a car they would never have been able to afford at that age, talking over coffee, burgers and a shared slice of pie (who gives a damn what the doctor says about cholesterol anymore? When you're in your seventies you enjoy your perks where you get 'em) and there is something nostalgic about the waitress who does her best to ignore the lingering glances at her tits.

She comes around with a coffee pot, smiling and asking if either of them would like a refill when a big guy with dark shadows under his eyes comes into her section.

"Jane," he says, and she nearly drops the pot, eyes widening to comical proportions as she turns around with a gasp in her throat.

"I….hi," is all she manages to get out. Bob tilts his head to get a better look at the guy. Big shoulders on him, looks like he hasn't shaved or slept in a couple of days, and tense as hell.

"Do you think you have time on Saturday to finally see the Pittsburgh Zoo?"

"You don't…" her voice catches. "You don't owe me anything."

"No, I don't," the man says, taking a step forward. "You don't owe me anything, either. I'm asking 'cause I want to take you out. So do you?"

She places her hand back on the table. It looks like she's gripping the edge to make sure she's not dreaming. She nods. "Yeah. Yeah, I can make time."

The man nods back. "Great." He stops, turns back. "What time?"

"Ten?" she suggests.

"Outside your place?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

"Good." She's starting to look downright adorable. Or pitiful. Neither of them is sure which. The guy nods, has what might be a ghost of a smile to himself as he walks out, but not before saying, "See you then."

As she turns around and pours them coffee refills, neither of them can help laughing at the small but irrepressible smile on that Bambi-eyed face of hers.

**E**

"Hi, Dionne. Can I ask you something?" Jane's sitting on her under-stuffed couch, trying to fight the urge to get up and pace around her apartment.

"Sure, honey. What is it?"

"I got asked out by this guy who…you remember me telling you about last Tuesday?"

"When you were attacked, yes. The man who helped you out asked you out? When did this happen?"

"Yesterday afternoon. I want to go, I really do, and it's a really casual date—we're going to the Pittsburgh Zoo, but I felt I should tell you."

"You know dating's not advised when you're only a year sober." She sounds exasperated, and Jane waits for the big, fat, "No" and wonders if she'd go so far as to go through with it anyway.

"I understand," she says. She tests her luck. "Granted, I already told him yes…"

"You're not obligated to go out with him, you know."

"No, I know. It's like I said, I _want _to go out with him."

"He sounds nice enough, but you still have to remember that a man's a man, and you're at an odd time in your life."

"I know. I know. It's only the zoo, Dionne." She just wants the "OK" and a seal of approval so she won't feel any guilt about going on a date. Is that too much to ask? It's not like she plans on sleeping with him—she wouldn't know how to go about something like that if she even wanted to. The prospect is terrifying even in the purely hypothetical sense.

At long last, she hears a resigned sigh on the other line. "Call me afterwards, let me know how it went."

"I will," Jane promises, and after she hangs up, resists the tugging urge to get up and do a goofy, Snoopy-esque dance.

**A**

He can't help but smile a little when she comes out to meet him, looking honestly happy to see him. He's no good at small talk, and apparently, neither is she, so aside from "Hi" and "How are you" and "doin' okay" he really doesn't say much as they reach and get onto the bus that will take them downtown.

"Since you're the one who's been there, which exhibit is the best?" she asks him as they sit down across from each other.

He shrugs. "Depends on the animals you like watching the most," he tells her.

"And…?" she starts, a hint of a smile on her face, waves her hand as if to say, 'go on'.

"Which one's my favorite?" She nods. It was all when he was a little kid. What he remembers more than anything is his Pop, hung-over and sitting outside the exhibits to avoid the smell with a flask hidden in his coat pocket, trying to get him and Brendan in and out as quick as possible, cursing up a storm when they asked if they could stay another five minutes. "Shit. Can't really guess. I kinda liked everything. I mean, what was _your_ favorite?"

"Sea otters, anything aquarium related, penguins, prairie dogs, primates, marsupials, all the really giant animals like elephants, hippos, giraffes…" she rattles off the list, shrugs, and sits back. "Hell, I guess I like everything as well." She sits back, tries to act cool but looks like she's getting a little antsy. He likes her big dark eyes and rosebud mouth, and thinks that this is a little more than he bargained for last Tuesday when he helped a young woman out of a rough encounter.

He's seriously not good at this shit; talking to someone he doesn't really know. He asks a few feeble questions about her work and she answers in kind. He asks if she's friends with anyone from the diner, she says yes, one of the cooks and his boyfriend. She asks him if he's friends with anyone from his work and he's not. All the faces sort of blend together for him. She asks him if he'd doing physical therapy and he mentions David, the closest thing he's had in months to a friend—though he definitely doesn't say that. He hopes she gets that there are lots of things he doesn't want to get into—family, adolescence, adulthood, pretty much anything about himself, but he can't easily say, "Listen, I like you but I'd rather not say anything." He's uncomfortable in his skin, wants to get up and walk around, and couldn't be any more relieved when they finally reach the zoo.

He ignores the military discount sign when they pay, and though he ignores the curious look she gives him when he pays full price, he notices. He almost silently dares her to comment, is relieved when she doesn't. And it occurs to him as they head through the zoo that this is the best option he could've thought of—he doesn't have to talk much, they can keep moving, there's no need for a conversation starting with "So, tell me all about yourself." He's actually enjoying himself, and it's safe to say she's enjoying herself as well.

They reach the prairie dog exhibit, and she bursts out laughing at one really fat prairie dog that sits in the center, chewing something with its eyes closed, looking like a furry little Buddha statue, and the others that come up and get on their hind feet to get a better look at the people, bobbing around like squirrels.

They go through the Asian forest section, where they see a tiger pacing around his exhibit, and as they stand beside each other, hands on the guardrails, to watch, they notice a pretty big cub come out of hiding. They hear a small child next to them say, "Awww. Look, Mommy! Look at the kitty! Mommy, can I pet the kitty?"

Jane hides her laugh with her hand and looks at him as the child's mother says, "No, honey, only the zoo-keeper can pet the kitty."

"Hey, I told you," she says, grinning.

He can't help it; he grins back. Yeah, she did.

He's paying more attention to her than to the animals, mostly because he finds her more interesting. As they pass through the Asian forest and into the African savanna in the world's quickest trip across continents ever, she mentions a few more animal facts.

"African lions," she says, looking over at the pride of lions grooming each other. "The only cats known to live in groups."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She bites her lip as she gives him what looks like a sly grin as steps around him, glancing behind her as she keeps going. He follows. She likes the elephants, of course, especially what looks like a baby elephant, gives an involuntary-looking "Awwww" as it trips over a log. She likes everything, but glances back at him a few times as if waiting for him to talk.

Finally, as they're giving the savanna one last look before moving on, he caves in and says, "Aren't elephants the biggest land animals in the world?"

Jane nods. "African elephants are. Since the Ice Age, I think. The only animal larger is the Blue Whale."

As they head to the tropical forest exhibit, their hands brush one another's, and he's not sure if it's an accident, but he is sure that when Jane turns her head it's to hide the fact that she's blushing. He knows he feels something for her that he hasn't felt in a damn long time—hasn't had the _opportunity_ to feel in a long time, and he's pretty sure she feels something, too.

The balmy air inside the exhibit nearly makes him forget that it's winter outside. It's the most colorful room, he thinks as he looks around; it's a few moments before he notices that Jane's not standing next to him anymore, but instead turning to the gorilla exhibit and turning her back the glass wall.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asks, louder than he intended, as she slides down to sit, back still against the wall.

"Gorillas don't like being stared at," Jane tells him, both grinning and looking embarrassed. "I researched them for a project when I was a little kid. They're shy. They won't come to you if you're looking at them. They're more likely to come out of hiding if you're turned away. Or at least they'll feel a little more comfortable."

He hesitates, and then, feeling ridiculous, comes up to her and sits down beside her, tilting his head back against the glass. "We look fucking stupid," he tells her in undertone.

Jane shrugs. "Probably, yeah," she admits. A few people pass their way, looking confused. He nods to them as if to say, 'Move along, buddy. We're sitting down. You got a problem with that?' while she waves with a polite, ironic little grin.

After a few minutes, a woman passing by asks, "Do you realize there's a gorilla standing right behind you?"

"Is there now!" They both turn their heads to see behind them and sure enough, a full-grown gorilla is watching them, close to the glass. "Thank you," Jane tells her, "Wouldn't have noticed."

By one they're both hungry and double back to a place near the Tropical Forest exhibit to eat, finding a place inside to sit.

"This place is terrific," Jane tells him. "When's the last time you've been here?"

"I think when I was seven…" he breaks off, realizing he was about to say, "for my brother's birthday," and stops. He doesn't want to think about his brother. Not while he's actually having a good time. It had been for his brother's tenth birthday, a pretty good day, what with Mom healthy and dad away from them, at home recovering from one of his "headaches". Even then he hadn't understood why Brendan had wanted the old man's attention so badly. It had been Brendan, not Tommy, who noticed early on that Paddy Conlon might be too sick to be there for one of his older son's birthday parties, but never one of his younger's. He looks down and takes the bun off his sandwich. "So you like it?" he says, taking a moment to look back at her.

"Yeah, I do," she tells him. "I…" she turns red. "Is it okay if I…get your number?"

"I don't have a cell phone."

Her eyes widen. "Really? I think you're the first person under sixty that I've met who doesn't have one. Let me guess: no Facebook, either?"

"None." He hesitates. "But I have a work phone."

She pulls her cell phone out of her purse. "What's your last name?" she asks.

Pretty sure she's unfamiliar with MMA, he has no problem telling her, "It's 'Riordan.'"

And he's right. As she taps both his name and the number he gives her into her phone, she says, "I've always liked that name."

"What about yours?"

She looks up, takes a napkin and takes a pen out of her purse, writes something down, and slides it his way.

He looks at the paper. "Gallagher-Weissman?'"

"Yeah. Below it is my cell phone."

He folds the napkin and sticks it in his wallet. He's not sure what name or ethnicity he expected—something French? Russian? Either way, the name 'Gallagher-Weissman' is warming to him already.

**R**

The rest of the day goes by quickly. Jane loves the aquarium, the surreal aspect of some of these creatures that, as she tells Tommy while pointing out a 'West Coast Sea Nettle', "remind me that truth really can be stranger than fiction." She finds that just because he's not talkative doesn't mean he's quiet. Quietness, to her, suggests mild-mannered-ness, and while he's polite enough to her, there's something about him that strikes her as far from mild-mannered; she caught a glimpse of it the night they met. She also finds that it's part of what she likes about him.

The tunnel through the Water's Edge exhibit is—dare she say—a little romantic, though there are other people in the tunnel, watching polar bears swim around them. She's caught between pure enjoyment of being here—this is, admittedly, a more enjoyable zoo than the one with which she grew up—and a steady awareness of the man with her, who asked her to come with him to see this.

They stand beside each other for a while, watching one bear do a backflip in the water, kicking his way upwards, and because it's beyond her why Tommy, as he put it, wanted to take her out, she tries to let it slide. She's just happy to be here; this is, without a doubt, one of the best days she has had in a very long time.

**A**

It's starting to get overcast by the time they leave, without animals, exhibits, or other people to distract them into silence, and a moment or two go by before Tommy asks, "Is it as good as the zoo you know?"

Jane smiles, looks at him. "It's better. Thank you for asking me to come here. It would've taken ages for me to find the time to come here, if ever." She considers asking him why he asked her out, because really, it should be obvious, but she holds her tongue. Instead, she asks, "Is it as good as you remember it?"

"What?"

"The zoo."

There's a slight grin on his face, barely noticeable, but there all the same. He takes her words. "I think it's actually better."

She tests him, she tests her luck, asks, "How so?"

They reach one of the buses that wait for passengers to board, taking them to the East end. It's when they sit down that he finally says, "I wasn't rushed to get in and out. I could actually look at everything."

"Did you find any new favorites?"

"Nah." He tilts his head against the window and looks back at her as they sit opposite each other on the bus. As it starts to crowd up, he leaves his seat behind and takes the one beside hers. "You?"

"Well, I can't really choose a favorite animal, but as far as exhibits go…I liked the polar bear tunnel probably the most."

A small smile quirks at the corners of his lips. "Then I think that was mine."

**N**

"I heard the waitresses are the best part of the diner, but the food's good, too."

They're walking back. She feels the heat rush to her face and for just a moment feels a little dizzy. Feels for a moment like she's in a film. Moments like these never happen in real life. "Is that a fact?" she says, feeling as though she's talking through a mouth full of Novocain.

Tommy plays it much cooler than she does. "That's a fact," he tells Jane.

She laughs a little, almost entirely due to nerves. "It really is the same kind of idea as Hooters, isn't it?"

He almost laughs. "Nah. You look nice. It's nothing like Hooters. They serve beer at Hooters."

Jane lets out a nervous laugh. "True. I know some people are put off by the fact that they can't technically drink here."

"What do you mean, 'technically?'"

"If someone has a flask in their coat or purse to Irish up their coffee we tend to look the other way."

"My dad must've been there a few times, then," she hears him say under his breath. She decides to pretend she didn't hear. Her apartment draws ever closer, makes her all the more nervous. From here he'll want to go up to her apartment, there'll be some disagreement, she's not ready for it, not ready for what he wants, though she's curious, too…

They get to the outside of her apartment, and because she isn't quite sure what else to say, she stammers, "You know, it's the weirdest thing about polar bears, they can go for months without food and still function just fine…"

A hand finds its way to her wrist and she falls silent. She sees storming grey/blue eyes, feels her spine go rigid as he kisses her, and after a few moments she finally relaxes against some of the softest lips she could ever imagine, bringing her hand up to brush against bristly, unshaved skin, senses a hand resting on the small of her lower back, the heat trapped there making her more aware of what she's doing, what_ he's_ doing, and she finds that, at this moment, she doesn't give a flying fuck about "dating after only a year of sobriety". Not while his full lips are on hers.

When they break apart, Jane knows without caring that she's red as beet-root, eyes popping out of her head, and Tommy almost smiles, kind of smiles.

"I'll call you this week," he murmurs, slowly pulling away.

"Yes, you will," Jane tells him, breathless, and then corrects herself. "Ah, I mean, good. I'm looking forward to it."

He pauses, touches his hand to the side of her face, and says, "I'll see you," before going on his way, looking back at her a couple of times.

And she stands mute for close to a minute before heading inside and going up the stairs. Dionne told her to call her when it was done, but she figures there was no harm in savoring the memory for a little while beforehand.


	7. Special Days

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. And I'm ecstatic that "Warrior" is finally out on DVD, so I can finally watch it again and show it to friends who know Tom Hardy only as "Eames" and, in my dad's case, "Eames and Freddie Jackson" (though he really was terrific as both) _Me Talk Pretty One Day _is a book by David Sedaris, whose work is fantastic. If you like dry, oddball humor I highly recommend him. I also recommend watching "True Grit." I figure on setting the year to 2010, so that it would be playing. Also, happy (belated) winter holidays, all!

**Chapter Seven: Special Days**

"So, how was your date?"

Jane smiles to herself. "It was terrific, Dionne," she says. "It really was."

"Do you think it will go farther?"

"Yes. I mean, I think so. I _hope_ so. We exchanged numbers and he said he'd call sometime this week. I know, yeah, this is the first legitimate date I've been on so I know guys will sometimes say they'll call and end up flaking out, but I trust him. Is that okay? Trusting him?"

Dionne sounds slightly amused on the other end. "Let me guess: he kissed you."

"Yeah." Her smile had started to fade but now returns with a vengeance, along with a blush spreading along the apples of her cheeks.

"You _sounded_ won over." She can practically hear the wry grin on Dionne's face and sighs.

"Listen, I know I shouldn't date after only a year. I know it's not advised, but is there some way I can show you that it's all right?"

"You're right: I don't recommend it, but I don't want to take something away from you if it holds promise for your happiness."

"So what do you recommend?"

"Start off slow. Be prepared for any warning signs and red flags, and don't dive into sex immediately."

"Come on, Dionne. You know me. You know my history. I wouldn't know how to go about it."

"Which is another reason I'm not convinced that you're ready," Dionne says. "As I said, take things slow, and make sure you're not getting yourself into more than you can handle. Now, what is this person like?"

"He's thirty; he works at a local gym at East End called 'Colt's'. He dislocated his shoulder two and a half, going on three months ago. He's from East Pittsburgh. Born and raised."

"Well sure, honey. Most people who live here are residents by birth, not choice."

"He used to serve in the military. He doesn't like to talk about it. He's not a talkative guy, by nature. He's well-mannered and everything, but there's something about him that seems, I don't know, kind of primal. I like it, though. He's very…red-blooded? Is that the term I'm looking for?"

"You're the one who's met him. You have a better idea than I do." There's a pause. "Watch your step. I can't stress that enough."

**F**

"Hello, my name is Patrick and I'm an alcoholic."

His mouth feels dry as he hears people respond, "Hi, Patrick!" He looks over at Sid, who smiles at him. "Today is day ninety." He bows his head a little at the applause, the whistles, the support. Most of the people in this room know that this is his second time saying this, so this is what he says. "This is the second time in my life saying that I have ninety days. Some of you know that already." He clears his throat. His voice catches at times. "I'd had one-thousand and ninety-nine days before…well…before the relapse. And the first time around, I'd actually told myself that I'd never relapse. No way in hell. I'd hit rock-bottom and I'd never go back there again." There are sympathetic nods of agreement, _I've been there_'s, people who have thought and done the same thing. He lets out a small laugh that sounds like a sigh, sounds like the wheezing of a sad old man. Sounds like he's blocking tears. "But I can't be certain of what the future will hold. I can't force things to pan out the way I want them to, no matter how hard I try. I dropped meetings when I saw my son again, so I could be there for him more than I had been when he needed me the most. And, of course, he didn't want me near him anymore. He told me, 'I think I liked you better when you were drunk.'" He considers this. "Which, seeing how I treated him when I was drunk, is saying a lot." He's a man of words these days, so sometimes, when his throat closes up and he's at a loss of what to say, he feels the need to stop, to get his bearings, and go on. "I wanted so badly to achieve something that was beyond my reach, beyond my control. I wanted to make direct amends, but now, I admit I still feel lost, because I've tried with the two remaining people I've harmed most, and neither of them have any interest in 'direct amends.' So for now, and this is what I couldn't grasp the first time, is that I need to take a step back. My sons are grown men now. They've had to deal with things I'm beyond ashamed that I did, lived with a person I can hardly believe I was. If they someday find they're willing to talk to me, they'll let me know." He clears his throat again. He knows he's blocking tears. "Thanks for letting me share."

"Thanks for sharing."

After the meeting, he gets several congratulations. Among them is from the girl who shared recently and who's been absolutely glowing throughout the meeting, Jane, who tells him, "It's courageous, what you're doing, learning to let go."

He smiles at her. "Hearing stories like yours helps give me courage to let go and admit my faults."

They leave the church basement, walk out into the sun, which gives a nourishing glow despite the cold, dry air. As everyone says their goodbyes, Sid catches up with him as he heads to his car.

"From what I remember, your sixty-seventh is coming up."

Paddy sighs, nodding as he flips through his keys before finding the one to the car. "Yep. Another year older. I try to forget them these days."

"Any birthday rituals at all?"

"Nah." His tone goes bitter and he does nothing to stop it. "Seventeen years ago I had a family. A dysfunctional family breaking on the hinges, but a family. Now I got two boys who are technically in my life but emotionally farther away from me than ever, the only woman I've ever really loved died a long, painful death and I could've prevented it all if I'd been a good, sober husband and father." He shrugs. "That and my old birthday ritual was getting smashed at O'Donovan's Pub, staying until closing time, and staggering on home to raise hell and not remembering any of it later."

"You still reading four hours a day?"

"At least." He adds, "Not _Moby Dick_ anymore, though. Not since…" he stops and recovers. "I'm trying to keep it to a variety these days."

"All classics?"

"All classics."

Sid considers this. "I'd like you to consider for a moment reading newer works, maybe humor. There's one I'm sure you'll enjoy. Let it be a birthday present, since you don't seem to be expecting anything."

"I doubt either of my boys knows when my birthday even is, so I have to say 'no.'"

Jane and Dionne must have heard this as they passed by, because Jane says, "Your birthday's coming up?"

Oh, how he wishes they hadn't heard that. "This Sunday," he admits.

It's Dionne who suggests going out for coffee after the Sunday meeting on Jefferson Street.

"That's not necessary…" he says, but trails off. Aside from church, what other plans could he possibly have? What else could he possibly be doing that's more important or more enjoyable than spending time with some pleasant, sympathetic people who don't see him as either a pathetic old drunk (sorry, make that '_former_ drunk') or some horrible ogre, but as an equal? He grins, though he has to force it a little. "All right, twist my arm."

**E**

On the way home, he tries for the thousandth time, for the life of him, to remember what happened that night, after Tommy inflicted what to him felt like a kind of verbal castration, after he went into the nearest liquor store and loaded up on bottles of whiskey. Like with so many instances, all he can find is a gap between getting drunk and waking up hung-over, realizing he was well past late to prepare Tommy for the final fight, wondering if Tommy was still fuming at him, finding he didn't give a shit because those were _his boys_ out there in the final fight and he had to get to them as soon as possible.

Neither of them has talked about the fight outside of Tommy's injury. Neither of them has talked about the words Tommy threw at him, incensed and fueled by deepest loathing and disgust. Neither of them has talked about the relapse. He knows his son knows about it. The bottles were still there when he woke up. He doesn't know how much he saw. Try as he might, he doesn't remember, and he's terrified to ask. The fact that his son hasn't mentioned it and hasn't made scathing comments about how maybe Christ and Alcoholics Anonymous weren't the answers after all, gives him some relief. Makes him hope that at least some of the hatred has evaporated.

It keeps him up most of the night, until it's eleven-thirty and he's still in his easy chair, rereading the same sentence over and over again in his copy of _Ulysses_.

He jumps in his seat when the door opens, Tommy comes in, and heads for the stairs. And he has to ask. Maybe it's pure, blind stupidity, but he has to ask.

"Tommy." His voice sounds even worse than usual. He tries to clear his throat as Tommy turns and looks at him, silently waiting for the question. There's no hatred that he can see. Impatience, depression, frustration, and an ever-present desire to earn enough money to move out, but not hatred.

"When I…you know…" he's floundering, but he knows his boy won't find the words for him. He'll wait all goddamn night if he has to, making Paddy spell it out himself. "In Atlantic City, when I…got drunk, did you…did you see it?"

There's a hesitation. It lasts a thousand years, the two of them standing across from each other. Finally, Tommy nods.

"I don't remember it," Paddy explains. "I just know it happened."

The words come slowly. "I came in around the time you passed out," he says. And he knows there's more to it, so much more to it than that.

"What happened?"

"You passed out, so I put you on your bed."

"That's all."

Blank expression, blank voice, and a clear sign that he's not completely telling the truth, he says, "That's all."

Paddy nods. "Thank you," he says finally.

Tommy nods back and heads up the stairs.

Paddy slumps back in his chair. Maybe his son's found something of his own to take his mind off the pain. He wishes he knew what, wishes he could talk to him, but the relative lack of hostility is the best he could hope for, at least for now. He just wants to see Tommy heal. He just wants to see his boy pull through okay.

**A**

Tommy calls on Wednesday while Jane's preparing for work and they arrange to see a movie Saturday evening. For the second time, Jane has an entirely new, increasingly exciting and bewildering reason to look forward to the weekend. It makes everything, the inconsistent tips, the hectic week and the looming threat of the second semester starting, somehow more palatable.

Friday as she's coming in to set down an order and take out several plates, Carlos says, "You've been smiling all week." To her self-conscious look he adds, "That's a good thing. You have a pretty smile."

"Thanks. I've just been in a good mood lately."

Carlos grins as he flips over several burgers in quick succession. "Does it have anything to do with your 'friend' with the luscious lips you 'ran into' last week? Who asked you out in front of your coworkers?"

Jane raises an eyebrow, grins back and takes a tray full of platters back out to her section.

**R**

They meet at a movie theatre fairly close to where they live in East End, and as Tommy watches her walk up, he has to admit, her smile is infectious.

He couldn't for the life of him force himself to sit through a romantic comedy, so he's relieved when Jane suggests a Western-action movie called "True Grit." Still, after the previews are over and the movie rolls, he's glad Jane's not squeamish, as the body count goes up pretty quickly. All it takes is a sideways glance to tell she's enjoying it, but he can't help but continuing to sneak glances. Their hands brush a couple of times on the shared armrest, and halfway through the film he thinks, 'Hell with it' and slides an arm behind her, wraps it loosely around her shoulders, his fucked-up arm, and finds it's not hard, not uncomfortable at all. Next to him, Jane tenses up at the new touch for a moment but after a few seconds not only relaxes into the touch but slowly raises her own arm to touch his, fingertips brushing against the skin bared by his rolled-up sleeves. The movie's good, but this to him is the best part.

The lead character, a drunk, mercenary U.S. Marshal named Rooster, bothers him. Rooster, rough and gun-friendly as he is, is way too caring, too tender towards Mattie. He grew up under the fist of another foul-tempered drunk and knows for a fact that such a man would think nothing of beating the shit out of a woman, a child, or someone like Mattie, who falls under both categories. He gets it, though. It's for the sake of the movie. In a movie about grit, Hollywood needs a violent drunk to redeem himself by being somehow caring and protective. For a movie it works just fine, but it sure as shit isn't real.

He hates sitting still for hours at a time, but his arm around her shoulders, the warmth of her body and the touch of her fingertips against his skin, the feel of her breathing and slowly leaning into him helps make it easier. The movie's entertaining, but he's relieved when the credits roll and he can get up and stretch his legs. It's only when he pulls his arm away from her that it feels a little sore. He doesn't care.

"So you liked it?" he asks as they leave.

"Absolutely," she says. "The dialogue was great, as was the acting. I mean, Jeff Bridges is always good at playing alcoholic characters."

"It would've been more realistic if he'd beaten the shit out of that kid," Tommy says, holding the door open for Jane as they head out into the street.

And she turns to him, giving him this odd look he can't place. For a second she looks like she's struggling, and when she asks, "You really think so?" he guesses it's because part of her didn't want to know.

"Yeah, I do," he says, a little more forcefully than he needed, and regrets it just a little when he sees her wince.

If this…thing…they have is going to go anywhere, he really has to be honest about certain parts of his life. The real reason he dislocated his shoulder, for instance. The fact that until it happened, he was up for the world champion title in MMA fighting. But she seems to trust him. She could easily type his name into a search engine and come up with much more than he thinks he can tell her. She hasn't pried yet. She seems curious but also seems to understand, even early on, that there might be parts of him that are best left unsaid.

"So you're into action films more than…"

"…Movies like 'The Notebook?'" Jane tilts her head at him and smirks. "Yeah. Don't worry, though. Even if I was into romance movies I wouldn't drag you to one. A man's got to preserve his dignity."

A bit of silence stretches as they walk. He keeps reminding himself that they're walking together; he's walking her home because her apartment is on the way to his house. He probably won't be invited up to her apartment…yet…though he likes her looks more and more; the heart-shaped face and big, sad eyes, the lanky body that looks good to him whether it's in that cleavage-bearing work costume or the loose-fitting clothes she has on now. There's also the idea of seeing her with neither, well, that's not the best thing to think about while they're still in public. He breaks the silence, asks her when the new semester starts.

"In about three weeks. I'll be adding a math course. It's mandatory," she adds, sounding put off by the fact. "How's physical therapy going?"

"Good. I'm closing in on three months, so I don't feel as…I don't know, crippled or handicapped as I have. My PT's a good guy." David's got a lot of patience and no bullshit; Tommy has to give him that much credit. And he's feeling stronger and more limber by the day, maybe than he's ever felt, because for the first time he learned how it felt to be physically weak, and slowly getting his body back, getting it to work again. He felt like a broken machine, and he (and David, he figures) are building him back up.

He walks her to her apartment, wishing he didn't have to go to a PT session after this.

"Thanks for the movie," Jane tells him. "I had a good time." She sounds like she means it; but still, you could watch a movie with anyone.

"Thanks for seeing it with me," Tommy says, and then makes damn sure that even if this date wasn't as good as the first, the second kiss is better.

He brings his hand to brush the side of her face and the soft skin there. He can't help but take a little pride in the way her breath hitches and her eyes widen as she leans in closer. When his hand threads through her short hair and he brings his mouth to hers, he feels her get gutsier about it, feels her wrap her arms around his neck and kiss back with more confidence than before. A soft mouth and a girl who, as the kiss deepens and she slides her tongue along the roof of his mouth, lets him know that she's his equal here. His other hand slides down her back and he has more self-control than he ever could have that when even as his thoughts slide he restrains from bringing it to her ass.

When it ends and they break apart, she's blushing and she probably knows it, but he thinks it's cute as hell. He makes it worse when he dips his head lower and kisses the side of her neck.

"So, does next Saturday look good for you?" he asks.

"It's looking better and better," she tells him, still, he's entertained to see, recovering from the kiss. She laughs a little, a breath of air, bites her lip, and comes back for a shorter, simpler kiss before saying "Good night."

She glances back at him as she opens the door to the apartment complex, a little smile on her face, leaving him thinking that wherever this goes, he's gonna enjoy it.

**A**

As they'd planned, after the Sunday meeting on Jefferson street, Paddy, Sid, Dionne and Jane head out for coffee. It's cold outside, and the welcoming presence of the coffee shop lifts his spirits a little—maintenance apparently turned off the heat after the church service, so the room in the basement where they held their meeting was freezing.

"Voila!" Sid pulls what Paddy guesses is a paperback wrapped in Christmas paper and hands it to him.

Paddy laughs a little as he struggles with the wrapping and the liberal amounts of tape, placing the scraps next to his mug of coffee and scrunches up his eyebrows when he sees the title.

"_Me Talk Pretty One Day_," he reads off the cover.

"Oooh, that book is terrific," Jane says. "Absolutely hilarious. It's a series of essays by this writer who, at one point goes to live in France and tries learning French."

"A mixture of dry and absurd humor," Sid tells him, "A mixture I know you like."

Paddy flips to a page near the back and reads an excerpt aloud, sounding, with his winter cold, like his voice had been run over with a car.

"'_He call his self Jesus and then he die one day on two…morsels of…lumber.'_

_The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm. _

'_He die one day and then he go above my head to live with your father.'_

'_He weared himself of the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.'_

'_He nice, the Jesus.'_

'_He make the good things, and on Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.'"_

Well, at least he tries to read it through, but he starts laughing early on to the point that he can't quite finish.

Jane nods as she laughs with him. "Explaining Easter to a Muslim student in French class," she informs him.

"I'll definitely enjoy this," Paddy tells Sid. "Sorry for having doubted you."

"You need a good laugh these days," Sid tells him lightly. "God knows they're hard to come by in '_Moby Dick_' and '_Oliver Twist_.'"

N

When Paddy gets home he's enjoying the humor enough to read the entire book start to finish, breaking for the bathroom and dinner, and around nine gets a call.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Dad. How are you?" Brendan. He holds his breath. His son. His boy, now a man with wit and courage for which Paddy could never take credit.

"Brendan…hello. I'm all right. Old, but sober. Are you trying to reach Tommy? He should be back soon."

"No." The one syllable is firm, resolute. But then he says, "How is he?"

"Well, he's sleeping here but that's about it. I don't really know." He sighs. "He's working a lot, at that gym where he trained for…well, if he's not working, he's working out and if he's not working out he's at physical therapy."

"Is he healing all right?"

"He's healing beautifully. He's working hard at it, taking good care of himself." He hesitates. "Are you sure you don't want to talk to him?"

"I'm sure." He hears a faint, probably forced laugh. "I actually just wanted to call to say…happy birthday."

Paddy's heart is in his throat. He can't speak. Brendan thinks that he won't speak and says, "I didn't get you a present or throw you a party or anything, but I figured I could stand to call you."

Finally he forces his voice, weak and not entirely in his control, and finds the words. "That alone is better than a party or a present, Brendan. Thank you."

"I mean it." He gets it. This was hard for Brendan to do. He'd hurt his son countless times, sometimes in the attempt to be friendly or just be there. His son won't let him in the house, but a phone call, a 'happy birthday', is more than he's gotten from Brendan in years. "I, uh, I'll have to go soon. I'm glad you're not drinking. You can get few extra years out of that liver. And…"

"You want me to say hi to Tommy for you?"

"I'm not sure he'd want to hear it."

"I don't think he'd hate it. It's always good to hear from you, you know that."

"Yes…good night."

"Good night." And that's the end of it.

It's the best goddamn birthday he can remember.


	8. Unhappy Anniversary

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Showed "Warrior" to my father, who said, "I doubt Sylvester Stallone would make it through a round with Tommy." Also, I'm very sorry I wrote him with the wrong shoulder being dislocated.

On another note, thank you to everyone out there reading this, submitting reviews, or just letting me know that there are people enjoying this story. I really appreciate it.

**Chapter Eight: (Un)Happy Anniversary**

This morning Jane can barely stand to look at the appliances in her kitchen, the coffee maker her dad had gotten her while wistfully telling her to enjoy her ability to digest coffee on an empty stomach while she was young, the cutting board, the tea kettle, stuff she had bought with the gift card he'd given her for Christmas.

Her father died one year ago today. Emphysema. He'd been going on seventy-one, and with his prematurely aging features, had almost always been mistaken for her grandfather. His death had been, as people had tactlessly put it, "for the best." They were right, if incredibly insensitive; a divorced, lonely depressed man in his seventies using an oxygen tank, hacking up all the crap he's been smoking since he was thirteen and popping Valium like M&Ms probably wasn't interested in prolonging such an existence anyway.

They hadn't been close; sure, he'd gotten custody when her parents divorced, but two depressed and not altogether physically healthy people who avoided interacting if they could help it could only develop so much of a bond. Still, he'd set an example. With all the different varieties of alcohol, all the fun drugs to try, she'd never picked up cigarettes. Never felt the temptation.

But he wasn't a monster. He'd only ever hit her once, for going into his Valium stash; they kept their distance, which had been fine with her. Had been her preference, really. When lost in their own little worlds it was easier for both of them into their respective downward spirals without interference from either party. He had been there when he was, well, in the same world and not out in la-la land. He was financially stable; he stayed with his head in the clear when working, so he had a steady job; he and her mother could tolerate each other enough a few years after the divorce that when it came time to get their crazy bad-seed teenage daughter institutionalized, he was more than willing to pay his share for treatment. Not like he could really choose, though. Mom had ripped his head off over Jane's suicide attempt. Had demanded to know why he didn't get her help sooner, tell her things were so bad. If he'd been paying more attention, he'd have put her ass in rehab earlier.

"You were there," she says to herself, watching the drip from the coffee maker. "You were unpleasant and unhappy and judgmental, but you were there. And you tried your best." He really had. And with a child like her it had been one hell of an effort.

Her father's dead and buried in D.C. She's not sure what she would say to him if she could reach his grave, let alone if she was the type of person who talks to tombstones as if the people beneath could hear and respond.

"I'm sorry I was such a disappointment for you"?

"I was a shitty daughter, but I have to admit, you really weren't meant for parenthood"?

"What made you become hell-bent on me getting help for my addiction when you never came close to kicking yours?"?

"I barely graduated high school and had to go to a psychiatric ward and then rehab but I'm not drinking or using anymore, so are you proud of me?"?

"How did you live to your seventies with the way you lived? How were you able to hang on to existence without real life?"?

"You were, in spite of everything, a good man"? Yes, perhaps the last one.

She hears a buzz on her end and answers it.

"Hello?"

It's Tommy. "You want to go for a walk?" he asks.

For a moment she's tempted to say she's sick, to wait for him to leave so she can steep in this…depression, this slowly building resentment. Then again, if she starts on this trek she'll just go in deeper. It's unseasonably warm out and a walk might just clear her head. It's not yet noon; they both have the time before work. And Tommy is…he's the present. He pulls her out of that loop, those memories of her teen years. He's not exactly a cheery fellow, but she knows she'll feel better walking with him.

"Yeah, sure. I'll be right down."

**F**

Jane seems distracted by something, lost somehow. Tommy's not that good at reading into emotions, but he can tell something's wrong. She's not like this. So he asks her, "What's up?"

"Was I spacing out?" she says. "I'm sorry, I don't want to get emotional on you or anything." He waits, watching her as they walk. "Um, I'm just…it's just that today's the one-year anniversary of…the day my dad died."

He blinks. She's lost a parent too? He can't help it. He asks, "What happened?"

"It was emphysema. He had it really bad. It's a wonder of science he made it to seventy."

"_Seventy?"_

Jane shrugs. "I had older parents. My mother's sixty-two, my father was seventy."

"Were you close?" It's not a question he likes, and he wishes he could take back the words as they leave his mouth, what with the look on her face when he asks.

"No," she says, voice empty, "We weren't." She takes a breath. She looks down, as if she's talking to the sidewalk. "He got custody when my parents divorced, because he kept the townhouse in Dupont Circle and most of the money and my mom had to find a place in Southeast in a neighborhood no kid should grow up in. I wasn't…" she stops, starts, hesitates. She glances his way, nervous and agitated. "I wasn't an easy child to raise. I just got worse as a teenager. He wasn't abusive or anything, we just…we didn't really like each other at all. We stayed out of each other's way. We didn't talk if we could help it. He knew I was failing half my classes and I knew his health was getting worse. He, um…" she lets out a shaky breath. "He started using an oxygen tank when I was, like, sixteen." She looks over at him again. "But we never talked about it."

Kind of like his current situation with Pop. They've talked about his situation as a deserter. He kind of told the truth, kind of lied about the relapse in Atlantic City. They don't talk about anything else. Because the old man's doing all right as far as he can tell and the house feels so far from his he'd gladly pay rent to let him know that it's not home anymore. "I know the feeling," he tells her.

Now she looks at him, waiting. Shit, there's so much he doesn't want to tell her. Some he knows he should, because he knows this is going somewhere. He wants it to, and they all say honesty is key to a healthy relationship. He thinks it over, tries to phrase it in such a way to avoid having to tell the whole story all at once. It's a long one, and he's just not up to it. "I lost my mom when I was sixteen," he says.

Her eyes widen. "Oh, god, I'm so sorry."

He stops for a moment, forces himself to keep going. "What are you sorry about?"

"I just, I mean, it's one thing to lose a parent when you're an adult; I was already living in Pittsburgh when he died, but when you're still a kid, that's got to be much worse."

He nods, more to himself than to her. He doesn't talk about his mother. He told the old man about it because he wanted to hurt him, wanted him to understand the life he took by driving them away. But Jane? She doesn't need to hear any of it, not while she's thinking about her own dead parent.

"May I ask what it was that…" she trails off.

He says it for her. "That killed her?" He starts walking faster, and she tries to keep up. "Cancer. That, and just, she lived a hard life." A _very _hard life. He could never understand why she hadn't left earlier, had stayed with that old drunk who treated her like a goddamn punching bag for as long as she did. It couldn't have been love; who could love a guy like that? Fear? Maybe she thought that as long as she had a warm roof over her head, insurance and her family all together, unhappy as they were, it would be enough. In time, though, she'd decided that she'd rather leave the house with her boys and never come back, left open to the elements, than stay with a ticking time bomb, left open to his rage. But then she got sick. And it meant fuckall, because no matter what happened to her, they couldn't go back.

"What…what was she like?" He looks over at her. She's testing her luck. He doesn't want to talk about it. But then he just exhales, doesn't stop walking.

"She was a good mother. She did everything she could to make sure we were okay." He doesn't explain "we." He doesn't want to get into it. And she stops questioning him. Shit, this isn't how he wanted it to turn out when he wanted to go for a walk with her. He tries to backtrack, asks, "You doin' okay?"

"Yeah." She's not really looking at him. She's wound tight, and he doesn't know what to say that can help her. He hesitates before reaching out and taking her hand. She squeezes his. Her hands are so goddamn cold, but they stay together, her hand in his for the rest of the walk. He thinks it means more than words right now. He doesn't know how much time passes by the time they head back, just that their hands touching starts to feel natural.

She's the one who breaks the silence. "Thanks for this," she says. "I needed to get out, walk around a bit. I'd felt like hiding out, just lying in bed, but this is better."

They near her apartment and he'd like to kiss her but this isn't the time for it. She probably wouldn't want him to anyway. He kind of wishes he'd come by a different day, avoided all this. But like she said, she needed this. And he has Saturday to do something they'd both like. He also knows he's not gonna try to sort out plans with her right now. There'll be another time. Tomorrow, maybe.

**E**

The next day she's at a morning step meeting. They're going over step eight: "We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all." And she speaks up for the first time since her first year mark. She talks about her father.

"Hi, my name is Jane and I'm an alcoholic and addict."

"Hi, Jane."

"Um, I thought about this step a lot in the past couple of days. My dad died one year ago yesterday of emphysema. I managed to get help, got sent to one of the best rehab centers covered by our insurance, but his own addiction took his life. No one ever did an intervention for him. And there were other things that he used, pills that only the two of us knew about. There were things I did I know he knew about. The drinking, the using, he knew, but we were too separate, too far apart to talk about it. I hated him when he even tried. We could've helped each other. In that house…it just felt like we were both just waiting to die. He tried to help at first, but you only last so long, you know?" she gives a nervous laugh. "It hurt him. I know it did, watching his only child getting wasted and failing school and not letting him in because who the hell was he to talk to me about addiction?

"I didn't…I didn't cry at his funeral." She rubs her arms, looks at the floor. "I figure that's another strike against me. Another thing that would've hurt him." She sniffs, her throat feels like it's closing up. Someone sensing a breakdown reaches for a box of tissues to pass to her. She waves it away. "It's okay," she says. And she doesn't cry. She hasn't cried at a meeting yet, doubts she will. "And yesterday morning, all I could think about was what a horrible child I'd been. I come from a big family on both sides and he was the oldest child and all the siblings judge each other based on the achievements of their children. All of them. And there was my dad, old, divorced, unhealthy, whose only kid was a train wreck who was never going to go anywhere. I was an embarrassment to him, and to my mother. It made me wonder, I'm not in any danger of being a success, but I'm sober, so would he be proud of that? I'm taking care of myself, I have a steady job, in waitressing, not law or medicine, but would he be proud of that?" Her time's up. She falls back against her seat, crosses her arms tighter. "Thanks for letting me share."

"Thanks for sharing."

Dionne gives her a ride home from the meeting. In the car Jane says, "I'd wanted to curl up in a ball yesterday, call in sick and sleep until the next day. But while I was thinking about it Tommy was passing by, had time to kill before work and asked if I wanted to go for a walk."

"How'd that go?"

"I mentioned my dad. He mentioned his mom died of cancer when he was sixteen."

"Have you told him about your addiction yet?" she asks, making a turn.

"No."

"You should let him know in the near future. Alcohol is a very social substance. He probably thinks that since you're twenty-one you probably see going to bars as something fun and new. And if he doesn't know you're in recovery, he'll think nothing of taking you to a bar." She shakes her head. "I don't care how many Shirley Temples you can get at a bar; you go into a barbershop you can expect to get a haircut. You gotta stay away from bars and clubs. And if you want a relationship with him, your addiction is a part of who you are. It would be an insult to the both of you to keep it a secret from him."

"I know. It's just that I haven't really found the right time to tell him."

"There isn't a right time. You make the time." She gives Jane a 'Don't bullshit me' tough-love look that reminds her all over again why she chose Dionne as her sponsor in the first place. "You've told friends that you're a recovering alcoholic, right?"

"Right."

"They took it pretty well, did they not? Didn't judge you, stop talking to you, or try to set you on fire, right?"

"Right." Indeed, neither Carlos nor Michael or the few waitresses with whom she has a friendly rapport treated her poorly after she told them. They just stopped inviting her to join them for after-work cocktails.

"Don't be afraid. Tell him."

Jane nods. "Yeah. I will."

A

During work, Courtney stops Jane as she enters a family of four's entrée orders into her section's system.

"Is your boyfriend a boxer or something?"

She looks up, not sure which part of that question to correct first. "Boyfriend" doesn't sound right. She hasn't been dating Tommy for very long, he doesn't belong to her, and he is by no means a boy. Instead of correcting her, though, she just says, "No."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." She taps in the order code and Courtney stops her again.

"I just saw him on T.V. recently. I mean, I could've sworn it was him. You don't forget a face like that."

"Agreed, but I don't see why he'd be on T.V. He works at a gym near my apartment."

"Well, I was just wondering," and she passes through to the kitchen.

Jane shakes her head. Sure, the man can throw one hell of a punch, but a _boxer_? A boxer doing televised matches? That's just fuckin' nuts.


	9. Cat's Out of the Bag Part One

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Also, PAFA stands for the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, a visual arts college in Philadelphia and Fuzznugget is inspired by my own cat, Cato.

Finally, sorry about this chapter, and the repeat of the fights. I know you've seen them, but Jane, alas, has not. And, as I've stated before, Tommy is not exposed as Thomas Conlon in this story, so no one during the match makes the deduction that he and Brendan are brothers.

Happy birthday, everyone! And happy birthday to me (in about an hour.)

**Chapter Nine:** **Cat's Out of the Bag (part One)** _or_ **"What's MMA?"**

Jane meets Carlos and Michael for coffee and brunch late Saturday morning. The walls of their apartment are lined with prints, drawings and paintings, many of which are by Carlos himself, a PAFA graduate who works at the diner partially to help support his art and partially because he actually does love cooking. In fact, he's the a making feta cheese and spinach frittata with lox in the kitchen while Michael pours them each a cup of coffee and shows ironclad self-discipline by not prodding into her personal life, but she's pretty sure Carlos has told him a little something.

"Anything new?" he asks, sounding way too innocent. Their cat, a small, vocal marmalade tabby named Fuzznugget, wanders into the room when he hears their voices, mewling at them to announce his presence. For a moment he sits on the floor between, watching them, and jumps onto Jane's nap, purring as he kneads and makes himself at home, vaguely watching their conversation from his new vantage point.

Jane grins at the both of them. Fuzznugget purrs louder and settles on his fluffy white belly as she scratches him under the chin and behind the ears. "I bet Carlos told you," she says.

Michael grins back, "Ah, kind of," he admits, "But since he has a vivid storyteller's imagination I figured his information might not be all that reliable."

"Why? What did he say?"

"That you snagged yourself a tough-looking guy with Angelina Jolie lips, a guy who walked in, asked you out in front of the whole diner, and walked back out."

"I wouldn't say I 'snagged' him, but the rest of it's true."

"He also said you're in a better mood than usual. And then implied it's because of your new guy."

Jane smiles a little out of embarrassment, feels her face grow warm. "That part is true as well," she admits.

A genuine smile crosses Michael's face and he leans forward. "That's great! I'm glad you've found someone. Let's just hope he's worthy of you."

She isn't sure what to say to this, so she calls to the kitchen, "Do you need help with anything?"

"Nope," Carlos answers. "Everything's pretty much done."

She absently continues petting the cat, who gives a small squeak as he curls up in her lap and dozes off. "I like him a lot. He's just…he's a grown man. He's not some frat boy with a douchebag haircut who says 'like' every other word. He doesn't really talk about himself, but it's clear he's been through a lot, and, shit, I don't know." She groans a little. "I'm new to this. I've never been taken out on a date before this guy, and I keep thinking, 'What's the catch?'"

"Don't you worry," Michael assures her. "There is one. There always is, in every relationship there's something you don't like, or that worries you or pisses you off."

"And what about me?" Carlos demands, bringing in food from the kitchen and setting it on the table in the living/dining room.

"You snore like a chainsaw," Michael says, grinning. "And you like Lady Gaga."

"I thought you said one. Okay, it's ready."

It smells amazing. Jane gently picks the cat up before she stands and places him on the couch, in the spot where she'd been sitting. He opens his eyes and looks up at her, then chirps at her as if giving her permission to go eat, and falls back asleep.

"It looks so good!" she says, taking her seat and taking in the sight of the frittata and lox, herb-roasted potatoes ("You can have brunch without booze, but you can't have brunch without potatoes," Carlos told her once) and fragrant orange sections, water glasses already at the table as they set down their coffee. "I l_ove_ lox."

"Heh. It's funny 'cause you're half Jewish."

"And I inherited that love from the other half."

"Really?"

"No." They dig in, and at first enjoy the food way too much to talk, but after a couple of minutes Michael pipes up.

"Wait, so, continuing our early discussion, did you add him on Facebook? A picture would kind of help…"

Jane shakes her head through a mouthful of orange. "Fat chance of that. He doesn't have one."

"No?"

"No cell phone, either."

"You're kidding!" When she shakes her head again, grinning, he sits back, aghast. "How old _is_ he?"

"Thirty."

"I mean, my_ grandmother_ has a cell phone. It's a trac phone and she barely knows how to use it, but still…"

Carlos interrupts with something that wipes the grin off her face in an instant. "Does he know that you're…" he doesn't need to finish.

She shakes her head again. It's something she's wanted to avoid with him. "I haven't gotten around to telling him yet," she says.

Michael sobers up. "You really should tell him," he says, "Sooner as opposed to later, in case he decides to take you out to a bar or something."

"Yeah, that's what my sponsor told me." She prods her potatoes with her fork. "And I will. We're going out later.

"But enough about me, how are you guys doing?"

Michael works for an organization that speaks out against sexual abuse and discrimination, and apparently they got new funding. Carlos sold a series of drawings and has been hired to do a portrait. And Jane really needs to talk to Tommy, needs to tell him she's a recovering alcoholic, because normal people in their twenties and thirties go to bars, and it's only a matter of time before he takes her to one.

**F**

Later that day, about twenty minutes before she's supposed to meet Tommy outside her apartment, Courtney calls her up.

"I know where I've seen him now!"

"Hmmm?" she looks at the clock, wondering why it can't go faster.

"Your boyfriend is Tommy Riordan, right? He's a cage fighter. He was one of the top middleweight MMA fighters in the world before he got injured."

There are so many things wrong with that statement. But Jane's first question is, "What's MMA?"

"Mixed martial arts. Girl, you been living under a rock or something?"

"I guess…" Jane runs a hand through her hair, pacing. "But you must have gotten the wrong guy…"

"Tommy Riordan from Pittsburgh, who served in the Marines and dislocated his shoulder three months ago in his last fight."

"He dislocated it falling down a flight of stairs."

"He lied to you." Courtney calms down. The urgency, the excitement of telling her has faded. Instead, she says a little more gently, "There are videos on YouTube. Start with one where he fights a guy named Mad Dog Grimes. I recommend going chronologically."

Her mouth feels dry. She can't speak.

"You okay?" Courtney asks on the other line, voice sounding a million miles away.

When she finally talks, her voice sounds like someone else's. "I'll see you Monday," she says and ends the conversation. She looks over at her laptop, which rests on her dining room/living room table and opens it, turns it on.

_This isn't real,_ she thinks. _This is insane. It's a joke. I'll go online and humor Courtney, see there's nothing there, and forgive her for her little prank._

Once she's on YouTube, she types "tommy r" into the search feed and his name pops up before she can finish typing it herself, along with related searches "tommy riordan mad dog" "tommy riordan Sparta" "tommy riordan brendan conlon." She swallows hard and, per Courtney's instructions, selects the one with "Mad Dog Grimes", whoever the hell that is.

There are two major videos, two fights with him, one of which has tens of millions of hits. She takes a deep breath, clicks on it, and expands the screen.

It goes by fast. She sees the interior of a dank gym and a ring, two figures inside it, and the one in the white wife-beater is visibly bulkier, with serious definition in his shoulders, arms and back but she recognizes him. Even with the poor quality of the video and the added muscle, she knows it's Tommy. She'd recognize that face anywhere. And he's blocking one hit after another from the other guy, catches his leg, and punches him to the ground. And he's on this guy like a fly on shit, pummeling him and, as the other guy, who she supposes his Grimes, evades his grasp and rises to stand, throws him down on the floor with a force that makes the camera shake, face set in a look of…what? Concentration? Excitement? Barely controlled rage? He wastes no time in kneeing Grimes in the face, guarding himself against the punches Grimes throws at him and responding in kind with a blow to the face that knocks the other man out cold for a good fifteen seconds. It's like he's in his element, like he's meant for this.

When the video's over, suggestions pop up. She selects one where she sees Tommy in the icon, one called "First Match Sparta."

The quality for this video is much better. She hears one of the talking heads commenting say, "This guy, let me describe it to you, folks for the few that haven't seen it, and I don't know anybody who hasn't, but Tommy Riordan ripped the door of a tank in the heat of battle, saving lives in the process, and then walked away without claiming a medal. _ He ripped the door off a tank!_" he sounds ready to shit himself with admiration. Jane, meanwhile, is reeling back. _War hero_? The man who refuses to mention anything about his twelve years in the military? That's the kind of thing you talk about, not avoid talking about. Ripping the door off a tank. Jesus fucking Christ.

"Tommy Riordan is a genuine war hero," says the other guy, "I'm not taking anything away from the guy, he's a very, very tough guy—"

"Goddamn right," Jane mutters without thinking. Since when has she ever talked while watching something, movies or YouTube videos? Maybe it's because she's nervous, her heart is pounding, she's certain she won't like what she sees and she has to blurt out the first things that come to mind.

"—but the tank don't hit back, you know. We've seen YouTube sensations fail on a big stage before…" and she doesn't give a shit what else they're saying anymore, because now the camera follows Tommy stalking towards the…cage? Ring? Doesn't matter, because anyone can see he looks ready to kill, ready to rip someone's fucking head off. He's even more defined here, donned in nothing but a pair of shorts and the sight makes her press pause. It's still winter and she has yet to see him in even a tee-shirt. He's always covered up. Here she sees that he has tattoos not only on his arms but on his chest and abdomen. His deltoids are enormous, and, as the camera follows, she sees muscles in his back and shoulders she didn't know existed. He's not just big; he's a goddamn force of nature. It is, and she can't believe she's thinking this right now, sexy.

His opponent is darker and lankier. They circle each other like predators. The other man makes a few blocked jabs and then Tommy makes his move, knocks him out with a blow that takes the man to the floor. He's out cold, and as soon as the match is declared over, Tommy leaves, lumbering out before he can celebrate his victory. She hears the commentators say, "And now he's walking out of the cage! _He's leaving the cage!_ There goes another rule out the window!"

"Believe it," she mutters to the screen. And, mechanical, not liking it but wanting, needing to see more, she clicks on the next video, the next match. And again, it starts with those annoying commentators. "He doesn't seem to want anything to do with all this adulation," says one of them. "He's just here to fight." In the background she hears crowds chanting his name, over and over again, as Tommy walks in again, ignoring the chants as if deaf, poker-faced and, god, he's menacing. She doesn't envy the guy who has to go up against him. As soon as it starts, he pummels the shit out of his opponent, unrelenting, flipping him over like a rag doll, slamming him to the floor with a thud that reverberates in the audio, and throwing down punch after punch. He has to be pulled off the guy by the referee, and it's not until then that he seems to be aware of what he's doing. And once he's back up, he swings open the door to the cage and storms out, graceless and aggressive. She tunes back in to hear one of the commentators say "…and straight into the final four, ladies and gentlemen!"

It means two more videos. She doesn't know why she clicks on the next video, why she keeps going, when she knows how it's going to end. It sits in the pit of her stomach, making her feel cold and numb as she sees the next one.

It starts, as usual, with the commentators. "Tommy Riordan; coming down the tunnel without his trainer. Once again, no walk-out music."

"I'd hardly say no music, Sam." The camera swivels to rows of men and women in Marine uniforms, singing "the Marine's Hymn" ending, of course, with "Ooh-rah!" The camera, as it swivels back to Tommy, just catches his nod in their direction as he makes his way into the cage. She somehow likes his lack of style. Trying her best to push the pure, unbelievable violence of it aside for the moment, she notices his lack of interest in pleasing the crowd, in attention. The other guys love it, relish it before the fight, come in with music to show how bad-ass they are. And then there's Tommy, with his complete apathy towards the audience watching him, no music, no sense of performance. He's blunt, straight-forward, shoot-first-ask-questions-later. And it suits him. It _is _him. He's just there to kick some ass. There's something almost comical about it. Almost.

And as Tommy gets himself ready, the camera swivels to his opponent walking in. It's Mad Dog Grimes again, his douche-ey little Mohawk dyed green as he struts in, prances around the cage, gets right into Tommy's face and barks, grinning, as he makes his way back to his corner.

"What a douchebag," Jane says aloud, over "…Grimes mocking Riordan by having a camouflage motif for his Mohawk tonight, and the Marines are really letting Mad Dog have it." He doesn't need to say it. His voice is nearly drowned out by all the booing. Grimes snarls something at Tommy right before the start of the match. He doesn't have any idea what he's in for.

"…he can't wait to get a piece of Tommy…said, 'they're gonna have to pull me off him.'" She's not really paying attention. She's watching Tommy. He's lower, more grounded, and when Grimes comes towards him, jumpy as hell, all Tommy has to do to knock him off his feet is throw out a right hook that plows right through the guy. Jane can't help it. She bursts out laughing and rewinds that second, thinking, _serves you right, asshole. _The smile fades, though, because now Tommy's tackled him, and he's straddling Grimes's stomach, punching the guy in the face over…and over…and over…

_He's gonna kill him_, Jane thinks. She's not the only one who does. She hears panic in one of the commentator's voice as he says, "Mad Dog's in trouble. Please stop this." Even when the referee tries to pull Tommy off him, it's a struggle, because yes, Tommy could and would kill him, and his face, contorted with rage, is all she can see as the audio picks up people screaming, "Stop the fight!" "Break! Break!"

"That's the fastest knockout I think I've ever seen."

"Mad Dog Grimes has been poleaxed. He is not moving."

"Jesus," Jane says to herself, rubs her temples as the camera pans to Grimes lying unconscious on the floor. And, once again, Tommy leaves without relishing or enjoying the cheers from the crowd or even the satisfaction of beating up and humiliating such an unbelievable tool for the second time. Just leaves, shoulders tense and head straight forward, deaf to everything.

She hesitates. The video marked "Final showdown Sparta 2010" is much longer than the rest of Tommy's fights, all of which took place in one round and less than a minute. Does she really want to watch this, knowing what's going to happen? The answer, of course, is no. But by this point she feels like she has to. This is the same man who saved her life, who's taken her out on dates, who's kissed her, who listens to her and who fascinates her. She sensed something of a fighter in him from the moment they met. And he's not just a fighter. He's fucking feral. She has to see this. If she likes him, if she wants to date him, she has to see this part, because it exists, hidden under a mostly calm exterior.

She takes a deep breath, gets up and paces for a few seconds before she sits back down and clicks on the video.

And it's the talking heads. She's sick and fucking tired of the talking heads.

"Pennsylvania natives will be proud to know that the two men in the final fight are both from Pennsylvania. Tommy Riordan from Pittsburgh and Brendan Conlon from Philadelphia, two very different fighting styles—"

"I wouldn't call the way Tommy fights as 'stylish.'"

"Maybe not, but the crowd is going wild. Both men came into this competition as underdogs and now one will come out the middleweight world champion."

The camera pans to Tommy's opponent, Brendan Conlon. He's older and leaner than Tommy and bears far more signs of wear and tear on his face and body. This is the man who will beat him, who will injure him.

The fight starts out with Tommy striking him without Conlon able to get in a good punch, Tommy throwing him down and pummeling him with the same rage as he showed towards Grimes, throws him down over and over, but this other guy won't give up, still shows sign of life. The horn blares the end of the first round a millisecond before Tommy throws down another punch. She winces. The referee seems too excited to point it out. It seems everyone's looking the other way when it comes to rules.

She hates to admit it, but it's a credit to Conlon that he's able to get up and move at all, let alone continue take a beating. He doesn't have all those cuts and bruises for nothing. He keeps going. And then Tommy throws him down with a force that shakes the floor, and this can't be the right fight. Not when the second horn blares and, once again, the referee has to pull Tommy off of Conlon. He's fit to kill this guy. They have to be pried apart. The animosity between Tommy and Grimes has nothing on this.

Third round. Tommy's on Conlon and punching him again…but then they flip, once, twice, and now Conlon's on him, putting him in a hold. Somewhere in the distance she hears the commentators. "Oh, my God! That's a deep omoplata there. He's got the seats up!"

She has no idea what an omoplata is, but the seeing Tommy down and vulnerable for the first time in the fight makes her stomach lurch. They both try to throw punches through the hold and then she sees it. She sees Conlon push down hard, and, even with the sound of the horn blaring the end of round three, people screaming, all she can hear is Tommy scream. She doesn't realize that she whimpers at the sound.

This is how it happens. This is how it ends.

So why does the fight keep going? Why are there so many minutes left?

Conlon knows what happened, looks alarmed, reaches out and Tommy, with his uninjured arm, rams him into the side of the cage by the throat and has to be pulled off. They both have to be pulled off and into opposite directions.

Why isn't anyone doing anything? Why didn't the referee point it out? Why the _hell _did neither of the fighters point it out? Tommy paces, snarls, grits his teeth against the pain, reminding her so much of a wounded, wild animal, before he has to sit down. He's covered in sweat and he's not going to back down. He's not going to give up.

She screams at the screen, the shot of the referee walking between them. "Call it off! Call it the fuck off! Are you blind? His arm is popped out of its socket, get him to a goddamn hospital!" She pauses it, breathes in, breathes out, keeps going.

And it hurts to watch, seeing Tommy stand, one arm ready to punch, the other hanging useless at his side, rage, fear and god knows what else fueling this stupid, _stupid_ need to finish a barbaric game he has no chance of winning. The two men are shouting at each other from across the cage, people are cheering like they're at a gladiator match, watching people get ripped to shreds by wild animals. How can people enjoy watching this? Anyone can see Tommy's lost the use of one arm and no one's doing or saying anything. Conlon subdues him, beats him over and over again.

They call an end to the round and it's clear Tommy can barely stand. She doesn't know whether she's going to cry or vomit as he leans into the walls of the cage, body contorted in pain. And he staggers in for the final round. The camera zooms in on his face, all the agony, all the despair, all the hopelessness makes her wonder what he's doing it for. How he can bring his body, broken and abused, to this last insult?

Conlon seems to hesitate before he finally kicks him with a force that knocks Tommy down, pins him to the ground and puts him in a hold. He says something, muffled and strained, that the camera can't pick up over all the noise, and then she sees it. The camera zooms in on Tommy as he finally taps out.

And then, the weirdest thing happens. While the audience erupts in cheers and the camera swoops in on Tommy, on the floor, doubled over and hurting more than she can imagine, Conlon touches his shoulder, looks him in the eye and whispers something before pulling him up.

The fuck? How?…why?...

As the camera tries to get a better shot of the pair of them Conlon puts up his hand, blocking them from view with a snarled, "Fuck off," and leaves the cage, and he's got Tommy with him, the two of them staggering, in pain, bruised and bleeding, worse for wear. The camera follows them a little while, zooms in on their backs as Conlon helps support Tommy as they walk out of the tunnel. She doesn't care what the talking heads are saying. She's long since stopped listening.

She closes out of YouTube and turns off her laptop, closing it down.

He lied to her.

"_There's something about him that seems, I don't know, kind of primal."_

She'd been right. He is _very_ primal. And he has a great deal of rage. There are other things, why he hid what he did in the Marines from her, but that she can put aside for later.

He is indeed in his element when fighting. That can't be a good sign.

Why on earth would his opponent ignore gushing fans and reporters to show an act of kindness to him by guiding him away from the cage and the flashing lights? Why did Tommy let him?

She puts her face in her hands, feeling sick to her stomach. She barely knows this man.

She hears a knock on her door, and her heart drops to her stomach when she opens it and sees him with a bit less bulk, his shoulder working, his face calm and healed but clearly annoyed.

"I figured since you kept me waiting outside for ten minutes I'd come up and see if you were all right," he says.

"Come on in," she says, priding herself on how she's able to keep her voice even for now. "We need to talk."


	10. Cat's Out of the Bag Part Two

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

**Chapter Ten: Cat's out of the Bag (part Two)**

Tommy had pictured the first time Jane would invite him into her apartment to go differently than this. Sex is clearly the farthest thing from her mind when she says, "Come on in."

And he knows that he's in deep shit when she tells him, "We need to talk."

He can guess what it is, doesn't ask why as he steps in and she closes the door behind him.

"You lied to me," she says.

Very deep shit.

He doesn't say anything at first.

She folds her arms. She doesn't look completely pissed, doesn't look like the kind of girl who'd get into a screaming bitch-fest, but he could always be wrong. "If you want to explain, I'm all ears. Would you rather sit down?"

He can't talk to her when put on the spot like this. Shit, where does he start…

And as she watches him, she bites her lip and says, "Please just tell me Sparta's the only time you've gotten hurt."

That wasn't the first thing he expected. He was expecting to get chewed out in which case, fuck her; he doesn't need to take any self-righteous bullshit from her. He nods, and as long as they're talking about MMA, it's the truth. "Only time," he says, and he's taken aback at how much that seems to put her at ease. But he's not off the hook. She sort of falls back and asks, "Where does all that rage come from?"

"Life," he tells her. And really, that's the truth, too.

"Life really fucked you over, then," she says. "I mean, holy fucking hell, you just…" she waves her hands, trying to find the words. "You're like a beast in there. You beat the shit out of these people and it's like you're not even thinking while you're doing it. It's like someone's programmed you to kill with your bare hands."

His temper flares. A beast? _ Programmed to kill? _"So this is a break-up?" he says, deciding not to add, _Damn. I'd really been hoping to get in your pants before anything like this happened._

Jane sighs, runs her hand through her hair. "No," she says. "Not unless you want it to be. It was just one hell of a surprise, Tommy, Jesus. Half an hour I didn't know what MMA even was and then I got a call from a friend telling me to look you up on YouTube to see the fights you did."

Tommy grits his teeth, folds his arms, takes a few steps. "Okay. You want an explanation? I didn't want to get into it. I fuckin' hate being treated like a celebrity once people know I was on TV for a short time. You make me feel like a normal guy. A guy dating a girl who doesn't give a flying fuck about MMA, about all that shit on the news about the tank, who likes whoever I am without that. You pull me out of that."

Jane's eyes get huge; they take up half her face as she looks at him like he's just pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

"Yeah." She looks down and nods before stealing a glance back at him. "I got the impression you were never in it for the fame or the money like the rest of the guys. Like you were in it for a deeper reason than that."

Now he's the one who feels stunned. Well this girl's just full of surprises, ain't she? How could she know something like that? The only person he told about his plan for the prize money is Brendan, and he knows they've never met, let alone talked about it.

"You think so?" he says. He'd just like to see where this goes.

She hesitates and nods. He wants to catch every breath, every nervous glance. He wants to see how close she gets. "Yeah, I do." She bites her lip, rubs her arms. Yeah, of course she'd get scared around him right now. Look at what she'd just seen him do. It's like she's trying to figure it out herself as she's talking. "Any of the other guys would've given up after dislocating their shoulder. They'd have seen the match as over. You kept fighting. If you'd been in it for the money, you probably would've enjoyed showing off more. But that didn't seem to be of any interest to you. You wanted to fight, and you seemed driven to fight by something more important to you than getting rich and famous. If fame had been a part of it, you'd probably have used walk-out music and done endorsements. And yeah, you would've told me about it and probably expected me to blow you or something because you're kind of famous. And even though I could care less about MMA or UFC or whatever it is I watched."

Her honesty, bluntness, hell, the fact that she alluded to blowing him, it impresses and surprises him. There's the cute, nice girl who doesn't seem to want to get on anyone's bad side and then there's this. Kind of confrontational, but he must have expected this conversation at some point. He was going to tell her. Really. She just found out another way first.

"Don't try to tell me you don't see me any differently than you did before," he says.

Jane shrugs. "Fine. I won't. It would be kind of hard to ask that of me at the moment. I just saw you beat the shit out of some of the best fighters in the world." She gives a short laugh. "I knew you could hurt a guy if you wanted to, though. If you didn't know how to throw a mean punch I might not even be here.

"Do you want water or coffee or something?" she turns back and heads to what he guesses is the kitchen.

Tommy sighs. Shit, she might just let him off the hook for this. "You got anything stronger?" he asks.

"Sorry. The strongest thing I have is Red Bull," she calls back from the kitchen.

What kind of twenty-one year old living on her own doesn't keep at least a few cans of beer in the fridge? "Then water would be great. Thanks." He looks around. It's a studio apartment; the main space is clean and barely furnished with anything except an old couch, a plastic table and chairs, a dresser and a small desk covered with books. Through the window he can get a pretty good view of a few boarded-up buildings in one direction, slightly better looking apartments and houses in the other. There's a dry-erase board on the wall with a to-do list written in cursive, a weird-looking painted clock on the wall, and a cardboard deer's head mounted on the door. Beyond it is a twin bed covered in a worn quilt and he finds he can't look away from it. Not until Jane comes up to him with the water, sees where he's been staring, and bites her lip, looking as though she wants to comment on it, and hands him the glass.

"You want to sit down?"

"Not really," he says, but heads over to the table anyway. She follows him with her own water and sits across from him. She doesn't say anything at first, but finally says, "You're not getting back into cage-fighting, are you?"

He shakes his head, looking down at the table. "Not for a while, anyway," he says, and looks up. She looks like she wants to ask so much more, probe into things he doesn't want to talk about, doesn't want to think about.

Sure enough, she blurts out, "How is it even physically possible to rip the door off a tank?"

He looks back down at his water. "When your adrenaline's going, there are people who are going to die if you don't do something and you only have one option you just," he shrugs, traces a pattern on the table with his fingertips. "You find yourself doing things you didn't realize your body could do." He takes a sip of water. "I'd, um, I'd really appreciate it if you not ask any more about what went on while I was in the Corps."

She doesn't get pissed, just nods, looking down as well. She gets it. They both let the silence stretch and, as usual, she's the one who breaks it. She hesitates, can't quite look at him when she says, "May I ask you one more question?"

"Depends on the question."

"Fair enough." She bites her lip. "How do you know that last man you fought, Conlon?"

He freezes. He thinks for a second he must've heard wrong, but he knows he didn't. And he knows his reaction's given it away, no matter what he tells her. Yeah, he sure as hell knows Brendan Conlon. There's no point in denying it, so he says, "How'd you get that impression?"

Jane fidgets as she answers, will bring her eyes to his face and back down as she speaks. "It wasn't just the fact that the two of you were pretty much trying to kill each other. I mean, it was the final fight. You _would _get more violent. It was the second part of the fight where things started to seem off. After you…" she gulps and skips over the obvious 'got your arm popped out of its socket' "he seemed almost as upset about as you did. Didn't seem happy about it at all, even though it sealed the deal for the both of you. And afterward?" she sighs. "I don't know this world, MMA, but I'd assume that, like with any sport, the winner probably wouldn't help up his injured opponent, lend a helping hand like that, especially after you took a beating to him, and treat him with the same humanity with which he treated you. Also," she almost smiles, the ghost of it not reaching her eyes or voice, "I may be going out on a limb here, but you don't strike me as the kind of guy who accepts help from anyone, let alone someone who's done you harm. So it made me wonder; you're both from Pennsylvania, you're both top fighters, maybe the two of you go back somehow. So do you?"

Jesus fucking Christ. He'd never thought of her as stupid, but he wishes she hadn't made that observation. _Really_ wishes she hadn't. He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, think of what to say, how to phrase it. She waits for him. "We're related," he tells her.

She blinks, leans back, looks at him with her eyebrows scrunched up, probably wondering if he's shitting her or not. He wouldn't blame her if she thought so. He can't really believe it sometimes, no matter how real the pain was; the words "I love you" coming from someone who he thought he'd never talk to again, someone he thought he'd spent years of his life hating.

"Are you_ serious_?" she says.

He nods. "We grew up together. Til I left, anyway."

She swallows hard. "Do the two of you talk anymore?" she says, "Or has your relationship been damaged too much for that?"

He shakes his head, leaning back, wanting to declare the conversation over so he can move on. "We weren't talking before the fight, either. There wasn't much of a relationship to damage anymore."

"There must have been something. He must've still cared about you."

He looks away, takes another sip of water. "I know that now." He's done. There's a threshold of what he can talk about at a given time, and he's reached it. "Have you heard everything you need to?"

She nods.

"I understand if you're still pissed," he says.

She shakes her head and looks up at him, dark eyes meeting his for the first time since they started talking. "Not really, no." She kind of smiles. "I guess I like you even more than I thought I did." He can't really understand the look on her face. "I got the feeling early on that you had been through things that you couldn't really talk about. I'd be a lot more upset if you were a convicted felon or a registered sex offender and lied to me about that." And then with a look of worry he can only hope is fake, she says, "You're not a convicted felon or registered sex offender, are you?"

"_No_."

Jane throws up her hands. "Just checking." She sighs and sits back. "Okay. Maybe a little pissed. I don't like being lied to. There's the whole principle of it, but…I don't know. I can see why you would've." She thins her lips, and with the way she slowly opens her mouth, trying to find the right words, he resists the urge to lean across the table and slip his tongue into it. "Seeing you fight freaked me out a little. Not as much as…" she exhales, finishes like a champ, "seeing you get injured. But still, in spite of all that, there was something about it; something about you in that cage that I kind of liked."

"Yeah? What?"

"The fact that you weren't going in looking for attention. The way you look like it isn't some pissing contest, trying to see who's the toughest guy, trying to prove yourself. I like the lack of performance, how it's like…you don't try to glorify the sport. No trying to dress it up, just getting the job done." She snorts, a small smile working its way on her angelic-looking face, a real one. "You're _such_ a stage ham," she says.

"Yeah. I'm a real whore for the spotlight."

"And I liked that because, well, it's a part of you that I already knew. It was something I could recognize, something I've liked about you since I met you." He doesn't know what to say to that, can't think of a single answer. She realizes this. She seems to know him more than he thought. "I don't know if I can go out today, after this. It's still a lot to take in."

He nods. He thought as much. At least she said 'today' instead of leaving him hanging, wondering if she thought this was a deal-breaker, ending something he was only starting to get the hang of, something he hadn't had the chance to take to the next level, was starting to really look forward to the time it did.

He gets up. "Can I call you or do you want me to wait for you to call me?" he says.

She gets up, too. "You can call me." He feels like he's in a haze, walking to the door, her following him, looking grim, looking worried, looking away. As he reaches the door and before he can say goodbye, she stops him. "There's just one thing I want to do before you head out," she says.

Slap him in the face? If she does, he might not call her after all. He waits.

She wraps her arms around him, pulling him to her. Good God, she's hugging him. He reacts the same way she did the first time he kissed her; he almost pulls away, doesn't know what the hell to do. He doesn't hug. It's just not something he does. He doesn't show that kind of affection. But after a moment he returns the embrace, feeling her breathe against his neck, feeling her heart beating faster than he would've guessed. She doesn't let go for a while, maybe thirty seconds of feeling her breath quicken and then grow steady.

When she pulls away she looks down at the floor, unlocks the door and opens it. "I just don't want to see anything like that happen to you again," she says.

"Neither do I," he says. As he makes for the door, he turns back. "I'll call you," he says. "Make up for today."

She nods as she leans into the doorway. "I'll see you," she says.

"Yeah." He makes his way downstairs, out of the apartment. He's pretty sure if she'd started yelling at him, he'd have walked out and not bothered to call again. He's not interested in anyone who doesn't get why he might just want to avoid talking about his fifteen minutes of attention he didn't want. Yes, he'd lied. Yes, it was the principle of the thing. But he had a right not to get into it.

A deeper reason. He kind of likes that. He's kind of impressed she saw that, and he's pretty sure that even if she asks, he won't be able to tell her what it was.

**F**

Jane finally slumps back onto the couch and decides not to go back on YouTube. She figures as long as she was keeping something from him she didn't have the right to bust his chops over this.

And he'd hit the nail on the head, telling her how she made him 'feel like normal guy', made him feel like he was dating someone who saw something other than some volatile cage-fighter or sports celebrity. _You make me feel normal_. Oh man, she can relate.

She figures it was a good idea to hold off telling him she was a recovering alcoholic for today. She can certainly put aside telling him about her mild tattoo fetish for a bit longer still. She had the energy for only one major revelation at a time. She doesn't want to end things. She doesn't want to walk out on him. She has the next date to tell him, because she knows there will be a next date by this point. The way he looked at her bed, the feeling she got letting him in to her crappy studio apartment, realizing that no matter how scared she is of sharing that bed with him, the idea sticks, grows, makes its presence known.

And if she handled this well, she figures he must be able to handle what she tells him without blowing it out of proportion. He kind of owes it to her, right?

Right.


	11. The Calm Before the Storm

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Sorry this is a little bit of a filler chapter, but this does set up for the next part of the story.

Also, I showed "Warrior" to my older sister, who was far more taken with Brendan, describing him as—and I quote—"om nom nom nom."

**Chapter Eleven: The Calm Before the Storm**

"Hey, Dionne, have you heard of MMA?"

"Rings a bell. Does it stand for mixed martial arts?"

Jane sits back on her couch. "Am I the only one who's never heard of it? Until, like, an hour ago, anyway." She sits back up, leans forward, picturing Dionne sitting across from her as she says into her cell phone. "So guess what Tommy used to do before he dislocated his shoulder? I'll give you a hint: it has to do with the real reason he dislocated it in the first place."

The silence on the other end keeps her anxious. "He was in MMA?"

"Yeah. Praise the internet for keeping nothing secret. His fights are on YouTube. They get pretty nasty."

"Seems you're not the only one who has a past they'd rather not talk about."

"Yeah." She exhales. "He came over and we talked about it. He said he'd avoided telling me because I made him feel like a normal person, not seeing a cage-fighter or a war hero—I guess he didn't want to talk about the things he did in the military because he was worried it would make him sound conceited, he most likely went through some trauma while overseas—but someone beyond that. And I do. I mean, both parts of it influence who he is. He's protective—military, he's tough—both, and he's definitely primal. But I liked him before and I like him now.

"And I guess it goes without saying I thought it would be too much for both of us to spill the beans at once."

"You put off telling him again."

"Last time, I swear."

Dionne scoffs. "If I had a nickel for every time I heard that…"

"No, I'll tell him next time we go out."

"So you're still going out?"

Jane nods into the cell phone—has no idea why, it's not like Dionne can see it—and says, "Yeah. I know what he meant when he said he liked that I treated him like a normal person. I understand that. I think it's the same reason I haven't wanted to tell him…you know. I don't want him to think I'm weird or damaged somehow."

"You're not damaged. You've just been through things many people have not, like him. Just entirely different things from what he's experienced."

"I know," Jane says quickly. "I know, yeah, this isn't something I chose; the addiction, the depression, all of it. I know that. But I just…I want to be a normal, healthy girl in her twenties who can go out to a party and not worry about a relapse, who can hook up with someone they don't know well after a couple of drinks, and enjoy it."

"Well, you can't," Dionne tells her, sounding almost amused.  
>"I know that, too." She just can't get her to see it, can she? "That's not all, though. Thing that's really bothering me is, he was in the apartment and he looked at the bed for a minute, and didn't say anything about it, and I remember thinking, 'Shit, I don't know how to get that intimate with someone while I'm sober. It's terrifying.' Then again, this is the first time I've been attracted, <em>really<em> attracted to someone, in years. I don't know. Normal people in a normal relationship have usually started having sex by this point, right?"

She hears a faint laugh. "Jane, you are far from normal. Someone who wasn't sexually abused during her teen years might be open to sex early on. Given what you've been through, no one could blame you for not being able to invite someone into your bed on short notice. If he hasn't pressured you, hey, more power to him, but you shouldn't try to pressure yourself, either. I told you a year is a much shorter period of time than you might think to get into a relationship."

"I still want to. I just don't know how to. I'm scared to." She runs her hands through short-cropped hair, turns back and looks at the bed that's so obviously not designed for two people. A bed belonging to someone who hasn't had sex in over eighteen months, has _never_ had sex with her full consent and all her senses working, and until this past month hadn't even vaguely considered doing so for at least another eighteen, if ever. "It's almost as—no, it feels more embarrassing than the alcoholism. More personal." She exhales and tilts her head back. "I guess you think I should warn him about this, too?"

"Yes, I do. But first things first."

"Right." After she presses the end button, she repeats it to herself. "First things first."

**F**

The first cycle of physical therapy is drawing to a close. He lost a good ten, fifteen pounds of muscle and is slowly getting it back, doing modified versions of some of the routines he did while training, thinking that even if he's not fighting, he still wants to push his body to the maximum of what it can do. David knows this, tells him to take it slow. He set himself back a little throwing one measly punch with his bad arm close to a month ago. He doesn't regret it.

"I'm starting to think you can scale back PT to once a month, as sort of a check-up," David tells him. "You've made a lot of progress. Then again, you wanted it badly enough to make it happen. At least it was your non-dominant arm."

"Yeah?" he says, taking satisfaction in the allover soreness from the increasingly rigorous workouts, running sessions, core work, slowly building upper-body work; it's starting to overpower the soreness in his left shoulder, the ache that reminds him on a daily basis of things he doesn't want to remember.

"Yeah. You've made a lot of progress in three and a half months, impromptu sparring session aside. What happened with that girl, anyway? You take her up on that offer?"

"Yeah." That must have been ages ago. But it was just under a month. He doesn't feel like adding "And then some". David seems to get the message, and after the session sits him down.

"I'm thinking this coming Sunday would be the last of the biweekly sessions," he says. "As long as you continue doing the exercises and increase the weights you lift no more at a time than what we agreed, I think you're good to go. You have my number, so feel free to call if you have any questions.

"If you start fighting again in the next two months, though, I'm gonna have to kick your ass. My duty as a physical therapist."

They both snort a laugh. "Not gonna happen," Tommy says. Not for a while, anyway. He starts to head out, and after a moment gets a thought. He owes Jane a real date, something, as he said, to make up for…all that. Some kind of date that he's pretty sure is mandatory, like going out to dinner. He turns back to David.

"You know any good restaurants in Pittsburgh? Like, real restaurants?"

"Depends on your style. Something low-key?"

"Not this time." And, because it's David and he doubts he'll have the topic come up again, "As in, somewhere you'd want to take a girl out. Something nice."

David nods; a small smile on his face. "Girasole. It's closer downtown. Romantic, Italian, perfect."

"Right. Thanks. I'll see you next Sunday."

Something normal. Something that doesn't remind her of the guy in the cage who beat the shit out of people, who couldn't stop fighting no matter how much pain he was in. She deserves that much.

E

Tommy decides four days should be long enough for Jane to let it all sink in.

"Hey," he says when he calls her up.

"Hey."

"You, uh, you have enough time for it to sink in?" he's just glad he's alone in the gym's office right now. The other guys at the gym, Colt, Fenroy, think it's weird that he doesn't go bar-hopping after work to pick up girls who would love to fuck a "war hero" and cage-fighter; girls who lean in over their beers to show off as much tit as possible and whisper, "You can tap me anytime, Tommy."

"Yeah, it sank in."

"So what do you think?"

"Hey, I _told _you I had no intention of breaking up with you over this. And I stand by that statement."

A faint smile works its way across his face. "So you wouldn't mind if I took you out Saturday."

"Take me where?" she asks, sounding playful.

He grins wider. "I was thinking a legit date, like at a restaurant. Do you like Italian?"

"I…sure." She sounds so surprised over the phone he can't help but feel a little annoyed. He's not _that_ cheap. Not with her, anyway.

"I was thinking of a place downtown called 'Girasole.'" The door opens and he wants to say, "Get the hell out" over his shoulder. Probably would, if it weren't Colt Boyd coming in. "Would Saturday at seven work for you?"

"It would," she says, sounds eager, sounds interested.

"I'll see you then."

"See you."

After he hangs up, he looks up and sees Colt standing nearby, trying to hide the fact that he's grinning. But it seems like the man can't help but go, "So that's the reason you're not interested in picking up chicks. You already got one."

Tommy doesn't bother saying anything back.

"How's your shoulder doing?" Colt continues. "You look good. Looks almost like your training again."

Tommy sighs. "Nah. I'm not training. I just finished the main healing process."

"The main healing process?"

"The one after being in a sling. After the main healing you can pretty much expect full recovery."

Colt turns and looks at him, and Tommy can tell the grin on his face means, '_There might be a slot for you in UFC this year after all._' "That's great!" he says. "How about the gym throw you a party or something?"

"No thanks. I don't like parties." And it's true. He fucking hates parties. People mingling, making crappy small talk, maybe awkwardly trying to dance. The only decent part is the drinking, which is so much better when it's cold, cheap beer shared with a few good friends who aren't trying to impress anyone.

"We'll throw one in your honor."

Tommy raises an eyebrow as he glances down at paperwork he should probably get to today.

"Come on. A party at my place, it's right nearby the gym."

"Hey, as long as you don't expect me to be there."

**A**

A restaurant. It's a perfect place to talk to him, to tell him things a little too serious to mention casually.

Granted, she's noticed Tommy's in a better mood when he gets to move around, but still, at a restaurant there's certain decorum, certain manners you must follow.

Speaking of which, she realizes later, looking up the place online, she'll certainly have to dress better than usual, judging by the look of the photos and the prices listed. This is a really nice place. Pretty expensive, too, unfortunately. It doesn't seem at all like Tommy's kind of thing, nor hers, for that matter. Not for someone on a shoestring budget. She'll probably need a dress, seeing as the only one she has is the one she wears to work, which means she'll have to go out and buy one. Much as she likes the idea of going out to a nice Italian restaurant, she really hopes he won't feel the need after this to arrange dates that will burn holes through both their pockets.

**R**

She's not the kind of person in recovery who goes into lengthy detail about her history of addiction when offered a drink or the opportunity to drink. In her opinion, to do so is a gratuitous way to induce shame in others for not having already made that assumption. She says, "No, thank you" and, if the offers persist, explains it in three simple words: "I don't drink." From there the person or persons will usually make the deduction on his or her own. Still, with Tommy she wants to tell him a little more than "I don't drink." That she hasn't gone farther than a kiss with him not because she's not attracted to him—far from it—but because the only sexual encounters she's had were nonconsensual, induced by some guy who felt like getting off and used her to achieve that end when she was either really, _really_ plastered or, on a couple of occasions, passed out. A simple kiss for anyone else is for her major progress in overcoming a strong fear of intimacy, her fear of disappointing him or not being able to stand touch.

One thing at a time, she reminds herself, getting dressed for that night, rehearsing what she wants to say in front of her bathroom mirror as she applies her make-up.

"I really like you, Tommy, and I think it's only fair that I be honest with you, and you have the right to know. I'm a recovering alcoholic. I've been sober for about thirteen months now."

Sounds all right. She does a check in the mirror. She looks all right, too. Times like this she could almost swear she was pretty.


	12. The Shit Hits the Fan

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

**Chapter Twelve: The Shit Hits the Fan**

When she comes up to the restaurant she sees him in a button-down shirt and jacket that strain across his chest and shoulders. She can tell much easier now that he's gotten most of his muscle back and she likes how it looks on him. She likes his powerful, muscular body, likes the tattoo peeking out along his collarbone, even likes the way he fidgets in clothes she bets he's normally at loathe to wear. Insanely full lips thin out as he tugs at the cuff of his jacket, shifts his weight, and finally catches her eye.

She also likes the head-to-toe look he gives her as she comes up to him in a simple black dress that suits her more than the one she wears for work, one that makes her legs look miles long in patterned tights and flat black boots—she never wears heels outside of work; she doubts her ankles and Achilles tendons would be up to the task. Though judging from the expression on his face and the way his eyes linger, she's pretty sure he could care less what kind of shoes she's wearing. Probably has no idea.

He steps forward, finally says, "You look really good."

She smiles. "Thank you. So do you."

He walks in with her, holds the door open for her, brushes her hand and slowly, as if waiting for her to tell him to stop, brings his hand to the small of her back as they head to the table. He pulls all the gentleman moves, pulls out the chair for her. It surprises her, and then again it somehow makes sense. This is someone who's been trained to kill and to protect, someone with rage and someone with manners. Someone whose behavior has extremes and who cannot be easily placed.

It's not so much that she's afraid of opening up to him so much as he makes her nervous. He makes her feel things she's not used to feeling, makes her heart beat faster and her face flush, makes her want him when she should be doing the rational thing and not date for another year or two at least, when until then she doesn't know how to deal with that want. That and he is somewhat of a mystery, somewhat unpredictable. Seeing him fight, seeing the kind of fury he possesses has not made it any easier to talk to him.

A waiter comes by asking what they would like to drink and makes wine suggestions that make Jane want to tell him to shut the fuck up. Makes her wonder, whine pathetically inside her own head, _Why can't I be one of those people who can enjoy a nice glass of wine on a night out to dinner?_

"Just water, please," she says. Tommy gives her an odd look before telling the waiter the same thing.

"You don't like wine?" she asks, wondering if maybe he doesn't drink, either. It would make this a hell of a lot easier on her part.

"Nah. I guess you don't, either?"

If that's not her cue, she doesn't know what is. She'd been hoping to be a little farther along into the dinner before the topic came up, but here it is. She hesitates, bites her lip.

"Well, it's not that so much as…" and her brain temporarily shuts down. For the life of her she can't remember what she was going to say, and as he gives her a disconcerted look, she couldn't feel any stupider, trying to force the words out. She probably looks as though she's about to suffer an aneurysm.

"I, um, I really like you, and honesty's good, and I should tell you I'm a recovering alcoholic."

Tommy just freezes. His facial expression goes from slightly bemused and concerned to almost blank, except that his jaw and his back stiffen. He narrows those heavily-lidded gray eyes at her.

She doesn't quite get his reaction, so she adds as a way to lighten the mood, "It's not contagious, Tommy."

It doesn't help. Not one bit. She sees his fists clench on the table. He looks away and asks in a voice that's quiet but the farthest thing from soft, "How long?"

"How long have I been sober?" No response. "Thirteen months."

"Thirteen months," he repeats. There's a malicious tone creeping into that low, rough voice of his that she's not used to. All she can think is, _oh shit. _He looks back at her, and she realizes he no longer sees her. He sees a drunk. She may as well be swimming in a kiddie pool filled with beer. "You weren't even old enough to drink thirteen months ago."

She blinks, tries to get her bearings when he's really starting to scare the shit out of her. He couldn't be more menacing if she was facing him in the cage. And for the life of her she has no idea why he's acting this way. "No, I wasn't. Not legally, anyway." She tries to make him see, wants to calm him down, because he's like a gas gauge ready to blow. "Addiction isn't age specific."

"_Bullshit_." He says it loudly enough that a family at a nearby table glares at him. He pushes away from the table, looks at her as if she's diseased and then can't look at her at all. "You have no fuckin' idea what you're talkin' about, little girl…"

Her pupils dilate. _Little girl_? Who the hell does he think he's talking to? And anger, so much anger, cracks behind her eyes like lightning and the words shoot out of her mouth without recourse from her brain. "Fuck you, soldier boy!" She finds herself nearly shouting, leaning forward and not caring if anyone looks at them, not caring if he has a good seventy pounds or more on her. "You think I don't know what I'm talking about, asshole? You don't know who _I_ am."

She could go on. When she's this incensed she doesn't calm down easily, and she can't take any satisfaction in the shocked look on Tommy's face, certainly not when this means the worst, when this has gone even worse than she'd feared.

"I'm leaving," he says finally, gets up.

"Good. So am I. I've lost my appetite." She's closer to the door so she gets out first, nearly running, wanting to scream expletives into the darkening night when she reaches the street. She hears footsteps near her and she turns back. It's him. Of course it's him. She starts to walk away. It hurts and infuriates her to look at him.

She keeps walking, and then feels a large hand grab her by the shoulder and turn her around. She's face to face with those_ eyes _and that look in them that makes her freeze. "At those stupid fucking meetings you go to, you ever see a guy named Paddy Conlon? A pathetic old man who wears caps and listens to books on tape, doesn't have the balls to speak for himself anymore, begs forgiveness like a bum begging for change?"

She says nothing, is trapped, caught between seething anger and terror. Any sign of cold, composed anger is gone. His eyes glint and he can't stand still. Oh, shit. Oh, _shit._

"That _drunk_ beat the shit out of me, my brother and my mother until I was fourteen. My mom and I had to leave home to get away from him. Don't you fuckin' _dare _tell me I don't know drunks. My mom died because of one. Brendan Conlon and I learned how to take a punch from one."

She's had enough of this. She's just too mad right now to feel sorry for him, too pissed off to appreciate this new piece of information, another key part to a sum that make up a man who up until now has completely intrigued her, pulled her in and is now shoving her back out because of one little word. Alcoholic. And now that that anger has overtaken her fear she realizes she can pull away. The grip he has on her shoulder is not enough to hurt or to keep her there.

"I'm not your father," she hisses, and walks away into the cold evening air, fighting back tears, and she's proud to say it's a winning battle, though it blurs her vision as she resolves not to look back.

A memory hits her like a bat to the skull. The one time he mentioned his father before tonight was in passing, mentioning his dad drinking. And then the epiphany comes.

Yes, she knows Paddy Conlon; a gentle, articulate older man who feels constant guilt over the abuse he inflicted on his children when he was drinking. A man who goes by 'Patrick' and loves to read and has a voice that sounds as though it were dragged through the pits of hell; a man who relapsed after a confrontation with his younger son who hated him for everything he did then and hates him for everything he is now, probably always will.

Tommy was that younger son.

_Out of all the people in Pittsburgh to fall for…_

She needs someone to talk to. She needs someone to talk to because she wants a drink. She wants a goddamn bottle of Jack Daniels, and then to go out to a bar like every other fucking twenty-one year old in Pittsburgh. The craving follows her as she makes her way back home, steadfastly avoiding looking at any bar or liquor store she passes, all the while thinking, _I want to drink_. She has to keep telling herself _that piece of shit doesn't have the right to make you drink. He never should have had that power over his father and he sure as hell doesn't have it over you. Fuck him_. Her rage, though, has lost steam. It comes far more quickly than it goes, but she manages to keep her composure, calm down her thoughts by the time she reaches the door to her apartment. She resolves to call her sponsor. She needs to. The rage may be dissipating, but the craving is not.

He's not worth a drink.

**F**

Tommy does what Jane apparently can't. He heads to a bar and orders a whiskey shot. It's not enough, though. He'd rather just get a bottle and drink it at home, but for the first time in a while, he's at a bar like someone his age should be, scanning the room for some decent pussy. He's not really in the mood for sex, though. Just a different female to distract him from the one who's just fucked him up.

And a woman comes sliding up next to him. She's Jane's polar opposite: short, small-boned and rotund, with perky, ample tits spilling out of a halter top that's a couple of sizes too small for her. She has a sunbaked-orange tan on what is probably naturally fair skin and long blonde hair.

He looks at her and her drink, a bottle of Guinness, looks at her face and pale blue eyes that take him in, a wide, full mouth that turns upwards as she checks out his shoulders and arms. Pretty. Though he'd prefer a pair of dark brown-hazel eyes that always have a look of vulnerability to them.

"You seem a tad dressed up for this place," she says, grinning and leaning in, not really realizing she's already showing enough tit that she really doesn't have to—really shouldn't.

She's right. It's more blue collar, more his speed, but instead of coming up with a response he tosses back the rest of his shot and orders another.

She furrows her brow. "Have I seen you before?" she says.

Oh, Christ. Not this again. He shakes his head as he gulps down his second shot. "This is my first time coming here," he says.

"No, I mean on T.V. or something," she says.

He looks away, wants her to shut up. This isn't what he needs. This isn't how he deals best with anger. What he needs is to punch someone in the fucking face, or, failing that, go for a run at a pace that causes a ringing in his ears and the taste of iron in the back of his throat. He gets out his wallet, pays for the two shots, and heads out, leaving the pretty blonde wondering what his problem is.

He doesn't have the buzz he wants, he's not properly drunk, but it doesn't matter. He'd still be crawling out of his skin.

Jane. Of all the girls to start dating, why'd he pick a drunk? A girl who seemed close to perfect. Seemed like a nice, normal girl who could help him adjust to a nice, normal life. Who the hell was she to act self-righteous about him lying to her when she turned out to be this…

He grits his teeth, stalks home, goes upstairs and changes into running gear, since he's still pretty sober. Too sober. As he pulls a bright jersey over his hoodie so cars will see him better, he almost thinks of asking Pop if he's seen her at meetings, as if he wants to make sure it's not some horrible dream or a joke. But then again he doesn't want to know. All those fucking sad little people reading the Bible as if that would make up for everything they've done, thinking they're different people 'cause they've found God. That God don't exist. If there was a God, he would've helped the people who needed it most. He would've helped his mother, not the man who'd ruined her life. He can't believe he thought things would be okay with this girl, that he'd wanted her, had thought she was the thing that was keeping him sane.

After a few stretches he goes out, sneakers pounding the pavement in a rhythm that he fights to maintain, goes in a five-mile loop to try to get thoughts of her out of his head, to calm down. It would have been so easy to pick up that blonde with the tits. He'd had a condom in his wallet, he could have fucked her in the bathroom—she probably would've agreed to it. He could've proved to himself that he can get what he wants from any other woman. He could've done it.

But instead he's out here, running through the 'Burgh at a strong pace and thinking about her, no matter how much he tries to outrun his thoughts.

She thinks she's changed? She thinks she's sober? They'll see. And as he finds that five miles isn't enough and he repeats the loop, he's not sure when the idea comes to him or why. He just knows that by the time he gets home, ready for a shower and something to eat, he'll go to that party Colt Boyd wants to throw for him. He'll bring Jane. Nothing wrong with taking a girl to a party. He saw her calm, 'has everything under control' mask slip. He wants to see it crack.

**E**

Dionne's not responding on her cell phone, so she calls her home phone. Dionne's husband, John, answers, and when he gets Dionne for her, she feels the tension build until she can speak.

"Sorry. I left the phone in the charger and forgot about it. So how did your date go?"

"Badly," Jane says. "Really, _really _badly. Remember Patrick talking about how he'd been an abusive father, how his younger son despised him whether he was drinking and getting violent or whether he was sober and trying to connect with him? Turns out I knew his son. And because of Patrick, he sees all recovering addicts in the same light."

"So the man you've been dating is Patrick's younger son. Ho_ly _shit."

"It's a small world after all," Jane says, bringing her back to the wall and sliding to the floor. "I mean…things were going really well and then I told him and the dam broke. It fucking _broke _and_ flooded_. We ended up cursing each other out in a fancy restaurant. I lost it. He called me a little girl, told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I'm pretty sure I told him to go fuck himself, but I was just…I was so_ incensed_ I wasn't thinking. I haven't felt that kind of rage since those first ninety days. It was bad. We didn't even get around to ordering our meals, either. And it seemed so out of the blue to me. He liked how I looked. I definitely liked how he looked, I mean god _damn _that is one…and, and he had manners and I thought; he's probably not going to be judgmental. He knows me. He knows I didn't throw a conniption fit at him for things he held back. And then I told him, and he just froze. And when he came back, asked me how long I'd been sober, he was terrifying."

"And he told you about his father then?"

"No. We both walked out, couldn't handle it. I started walking away but he grabbed me by the shoulder and that's when he told me." She sighs, rubs a hand over her face. "I want a drink. I want to drink really badly. I won't, but I've had that craving since I started walking home. It seemed like so much work, so much want, for something that ended just like _that,_" she slaps her hand on her thigh. "I mean, I bought a goddamn_ dress_ for this guy."

"He's not worth it," Dionne tells her, deep voice firm. "No one is."

"I kept telling myself that," Jane says. "He had power over Patrick because Patrick couldn't make the amends he wanted to, couldn't find redemption with him after skipping meetings and everything over him. That's bad enough, even when his guilt was justified. I, on the other hand, haven't done shit to him. He has no right to pass along all that guilt on to me. I've paid my dues, I've gotten hurt, I've made amends to the people I've harmed and he's not one of them. He doesn't have any power over me. At least that's what I keep telling myself." She hesitates. Dionne waits. "It just really sucks at the moment. Hurts at the moment. I'd so wanted to keep this going, this relationship. And it's ended so fast I can't keep up. I keep thinking about how maybe he'll calm down, turn around and apologize. Hell, if he did I might just give it another shot."

There's a silence as Dionne hesitates, waits for Jane to continue, and when she doesn't, chooses her words carefully. "If he does turn around and apologize, he probably won't mean it. If he offers to give it another shot, there will probably be a hidden motive to it. If the only other alcoholic he's known is one who traumatized him as a child, it's not an image he can easily shake. You can't just put a band aid on a deep wound and say it's healed, even if the bleeding's stopped. If he has problems with rage, what he grew up with plays a large part in that rage. You didn't mean to, you didn't know, but you triggered that rage. So honey, if he offers to give it another shot, be careful. That anger towards you is far from gone."

At the end of the phone call, in spite of everything that's gone on, her stomach rumbles. She sighs, gets up, and grabs a Budget Gourmet frozen dinner out of the freezer. Ah, fine dining.


	13. First Test

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Sorry if I made Tommy out to be something of a scheming villain in the last chapter. Believe me, if I thought him to really be one, there would have been a lot more moustache-twirling. That said, he's not done being an antagonizing dick.

**Chapter Thirteen: First Test**

The next day is the last PT session he'll have with David for another month, and as they work, he says, "So my boss figured on throwing a party in honor of me three-and-a-half months healed, and I figured, since you're the guy who's gotten me there, would you want to come?"

David looks at him, grins a little. "Thank you. As long as I don't count as your date," he adds.

Tommy snorts. "Nah. I'm bringing someone for that." He's sure of that now. He'll take her out again.

"Just out of curiosity, does she have anything to do with the fact that you've been in a much better mood for the past month?"

Oh, fuck, he doesn't want to get into that. David realizes this, raises his hands as if to say, 'not my business. Sorry' and sets up the next machine. At the end of it he gives David the time and address and heads out. Yeah. She brightened his mood for a while. She wrecked it yesterday. And he realizes she might turn him down if he asks her out again. Saying "fuck you" usually means there's not going to be a next time. Then again, he's pretty sure she likes him. And, like his father, she seems so intent on getting approval she'll do anything to get on his good side again.

_Does he want her to relapse?_

Well…_no_.

Does he want to see whether or not she's really the person he thought he knew, instead of a shell of a person, acting like some martyr, someone who will snap and start on the bottle again if he pushes her?

He can't help it if that's what he knows, what he's seen.

**F**

She gets a call Thursday as she's getting ready for work. She hadn't really gotten her hopes up that he would call. A small part of her actually hoped he wouldn't, because, really, this thing they had hadn't gone very far, they hadn't done very much and she figured as long as it's over quickly her life can go back to normal and she can hand in all the complications that dating Tommy entails. There are many. He's a complicated man.

It doesn't work in her favor, though, that she loves the sound of his voice, the roughness of it, and the cadence that makes him seem all the more red-blooded. He sounds oddly formal when he says, "Jane."

She mimics him. "Tommy," she replies in an equally formal tone.

"I, uh, I freaked out at you. And sort of walked away before you really had the chance to talk."

Right. "So you're saying you want to talk?" A man of few words except expletives when it comes to her recently wants to talk.

He hesitates. "I'm saying…there's this party my boss arranged. It sort of has to do with the fact that I'm mostly healed—"

"Congratulations."

"—Thanks. It's pretty much next door to the gym, just across the old tracks. It's Saturday, around eight or nine. I was wondering if you wanted to go with me."

She leans back, thinks, _what's the catch here?_ There is one. She knows this isn't some innocent invitation. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah." There's silence on the other end of the line. "My PT's gonna be there and everything."

Maybe it's pride. Maybe it's a continuing attraction. Maybe it's complete and utter stupidity. But she says, "Sure. Do you want to give me the address so I can meet you there?"

"I'll meet you outside your apartment. I'll walk with you."

"All right." She clicks 'End' without saying goodbye. She's not particularly angry with him anymore, though she feels she probably should be, and would prefer it if he thought she was. Dionne's words stuck with her, and they're all she's thinking now.

_You didn't mean to, but you triggered that rage. _

_If he offers to give it another shot, be careful. That anger towards you is far from gone._

At least he didn't go out of his way to bullshit her with "heartfelt" apologies. He'd know just how full of shit that would sound. A party. She groans. Of course. There will be alcohol there. She's had people drink around her. If people start doing keg stands, she will leave. It's close enough to her apartment and she has a new can of mace. As long as she doesn't have to use it on Tommy—though the idea is somewhat appealing at the moment—she'll be fine.

**E**

Saturday at nine she meets him outside her apartment, sees he's out early and looks at her with an expression she can't quite place. Somewhere between disdain and curiosity, a look that guarantees he's not interested in continuing what they had; just in making her uncomfortable as hell. They walk together without a word to Colt Boyd's house, a relatively modest place with a warm, bright interior filled with music and people who look like they probably either work out at his gym or work at the Hooter's nearby.

Colt himself doesn't look like a fighter, and as he smiles at her and shakes his hand, doesn't seem like a particularly tough guy at all. Granted, with the business clout he seems to have in the MMA world, he doesn't need to be either.

"I guess you know our boy Tommy here from the Pittsburgh throw-down?" he says.

She's sure her annoyance shows in her face as she says, "Actually, I'd never heard of it until I'd known him for nearly a month," she says. She's not his fan, she's not his groupie, and she's certain at this point that she's not his girlfriend.

His eyes widen at Tommy as if to say, '_Holy shit, there's a girl who likes you for your personality?_' He lets them aside and as they both put their jackets in the closet, she notices he's in a short sleeved shirt, one that probably isn't meant to show off his body but does. She feels hopelessly shallow and pathetic as she sneaks a glance at his tattoos on thick, muscular arms and grey fabric covering a sculpted abdomen. It becomes immediately clear that she's not the only one looking. There are women here, most of them in their twenties and maybe thirties, all of them looking at Tommy. All have orange-looking tans in the middle of winter and long, heavily streaked hair. Several of them are wearing Hooter's tops. All of them look at her with unflattering dismay, and she knows what they're thinking: _Who is this sad, pale, mousey person and why the hell is Tommy Riordan with her? _

She keeps her temper in check when they flirt with him, finding every excuse to touch him as they wish him congratulations, put their manicured hands on his chest or give him hugs. She expects him to flirt back, whether out of genuine interest or simply to piss her off but he doesn't. He slips an arm around her waist and holds her to him, as if keeping her on a leash.

When they escape the throng of Hooters girls she tries to keep the resentment out of her voice when she says, "So do you know them from their work or outside of it?" She won't admit it to anyone, least of all him, that she wonders which one's he's slept with. She doesn't want to be the jealous type when she's sure he feels nothing for her now except animosity.

He looks at her with what might be amusement. "I actually haven't met most of them," he says.

"They all knew your name."

"They've all watched MMA."

He's polite to the men at the gym, but he still seems to intimidate them, and from the way his arm never leaves her waist, in fact wraps tighter around her when she meets them in a clear indication of possession, he prefers it that way. So the men are polite to her, and never flirtatious. Not when Tommy seems to mark her with a silent, _Mine. _

Everyone offers her drinks.

People clutch bottles of cold beer, beads of condensation sliding down the glass necks and she has to look away often because a part of her wants to lick them away. She shouldn't be here.

A guy in his twenties with short, spiked black hair grins at them both as Tommy guides her to the place she fears most: the booze-laden dining room, complete with cooler. The guy stands next to it and shakes her hand, grinning at her maybe a little longer than he should.

"I'm Fenroy," he tells her. "I work the front desk with Tommy most of the time. Hey, would either of you guys care for a beer?"

"Nah," Tommy says. "I've got my eye on the Jack Daniels on the table."

"Fair enough." He turns to Jane. "How about you? What's your poison? Guinness, Heineken, Corona…"

"Strychnine," she says without thinking. They both look at her and she forces a smile. "Do you have any water in there?"

As he fishes a plastic Deer Park bottle out of the cooler, the ever-helpful Fenroy says, "Not a beer girl?"

She thinks, '_The fuck I'm not. I could drink your candy-ass under the table with any kind of beer_.' "Not really," she says, continuing to force that smile and accepting the water. She wants out. She really, _really _wants out. She feels so out of place here. Like an Amish person at a strip club, she feels like she sticks out like a sore thumb. _Which one of these is not like the other?_ She thinks, watching everyone else laughing and drinking.

"Oh, hey, there's David," Tommy says, and all but drags her to the table, where a tall, handsome Black man in his late thirties, early forties with long braids is talking to a heavily-tattooed guy and drinking a rum and Coke.

Right now what Jane wants is to go home, to tell Tommy to fuck off and stop acting like a man-child; but somehow, stupidly, she doesn't. She wants to see how far he'll test her. She wants to see how he acts. She wants to feel his arm around her waist, slung low enough his hand almost reaches her ass. She hates it. She wants it. She's being reckless, playing a dangerous game as Tommy pours himself some whiskey and introduces her to David.

"Tommy's told me about you," she tells him, smiling as graciously as she can manage under the circumstances—a successful endeavor; she _is_ a waitress after all—as she shakes his hand. "All positive," she adds, since he probably knows just as well as she does that the man who raised hell in the cage is not exactly a ray of sunshine. "You really helped him through a rough time."

David grins a little. "I can't take credit for what he's done in the past few months."

"Yes, you can," Tommy says as he drinks and pours a refill.

"Maybe partial credit," David compromises, "But you're one of the most driven people I've ever known. You got yourself back into excellent shape in less than four months. That's not an easy feat."

"Not at all," Jane agrees. They could be talking about the mating habits of Amazonian insect species and she'd be going, "Uh-huh. Oh wow." Anything to distract her from the bottles in front of her. She looks over at Tommy and thinks; _He _would _be a whiskey man. Rugged, masculine Irish drink. Of course. _She feels as though if she disappeared, neither he nor anyone else would care. As Colt comes by and snatches both men up, she tests that theory by heading outside onto the back porch.

It's a small backyard, but it's empty outside and the most welcoming sight she's seen so far tonight. She undoes the top to her water bottle cap and takes a long, thirsty gulp. Takes a gulp of air afterward.

The winter air is fairly mild for late January, and absolutely beautiful. She sits down on the step of the back porch and suddenly feels numb. Feels awkward and ugly as sin. For several minutes she just steeps in her shitty self-esteem and tries to let that distract her from the cravings she's getting. She winces as she hears the back door open. She doesn't want company.

"Hello, Jane," comes David's voice. "Mind if I sit down?"

Thinking;_ 'at least it's not one of those Megan Fox wannabes'_ she glances behind her and says, "Not at all. Have a seat."

And he does. She's relieved to see he's no longer holding a drink. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Jane rubs her arms. It's not even that cold. "Just got a little claustrophobic in there. I'm not a party person."

"I got that impression. I gotta say though, you've helped him this past month. He was in a horrible mood, was almost trying to get himself reinjured, and since he's met you his outlook has gotten better." He thinks about it. "That punch he threw wasn't the wisest decision, but still…"

"He mentioned me?" she says, not looking up.

"Yeah. A couple of times. He rarely talks, but he's mentioned you."

She snorts a laugh. She's certain David has the best of intentions, but she can't help but find the idea of Tommy seeing her as good for him anymore as ridiculous. "Did he mention I'm a recovering alcoholic?" she says, trying to bite back the scowl in her voice. He's not a bad guy, after all. "I'm a little over a year sober."

She looks up. David looks alarmed. "And he brought you to a party filled with alcohol?" he says.

Jane laughs a little. There's no humor in it, only grim observation. "I think he wanted to see if I'd drink or not." She takes another swig of water. "He, um, had some painful experiences with alcoholics when he was younger. It kind of stained the entire demographic for him, whether they're sober now or not."

"Well that's uh, that's…" he laughs a little, "That's kind of a dick move."

Jane nods, glad that she's not the first one to say it.

David continues. "I mean it though. You helped him."

"How?" Jane asks. She's never once seen him work out. Wouldn't know a thing about helping him do it. She's seen only the results—to a very limited extent, anyway.

"You helped keep his head clear. Gave him something to think about and work out for other than contact sports."

"Come on. A guy working out like that for my benefit? He already knows he's too attractive for me, abs of steel or not."

David tilts his head at her. "You think so?" he says.

"I know it," Jane tells him. "I mean, look at those girls out there. Those girls with the tits and the tans are what ninety-nine-point-nine percent of what heterosexual men find attractive, and they're all hitting on him. I kind of expect him to go home with one of them."

"You do realize he's attracted to _you_, not them," David says, talking slowly, as if he's addressing a mentally handicapped person. The man just doesn't get it.

She shakes her head and takes another sip of water. "If he was, he's not anymore."

David sighs. "I gotta say; he's being a real asshole right now, but it's not because he doesn't like you. Trust me, if he didn't like you, he wouldn't have bothered to talk to you after you told him, if he finds your addiction that offensive to him personally. He wouldn't have bothered contacting you, even if it is to pull something like this and take you to a place where everyone else is drinking, including him."

"I think he just wants to see me relapse."

**A**

"To the toughest fuckin' guy on the planet. I don't give a fuck what anyone says." Colt raises his beer and everyone else follows. After cheering and a few people patting him on the back, Tommy scans the room for Jane and can't find her. He brushes past several people who congratulate him, tell him how awesome it would be if he was able to start fighting again this year, a few girls who try to get his attention, and one who evens out his shirt and asks if there's anything she can do for him.

He's in no mood for her. "Yeah, have you seen Jane?" he says.

She looks immediately pissed off. "Who?"

"The girl I came in with," he snaps. Where could she have gone? Did she leave?

Is she drinking?

The idea leaves a lump in his throat, leaves him near-breathless.

"Oh." The girl's pouting now. "She headed outside with your friend David."

And now a thought he knows is irrational but can't help but feel is; '_Oh, she's not just a drunk, she's a whore, too_.' And, of course, it's just the reaction the girl wanted. She starts to take his arm but he brushes it off. They wouldn't try anything outside, probably not inside, either. But the thought still pisses him off, makes black clouds in his mind and he heads for the backyard.

**R**

Jane hears the back door swing open again and she hears Tommy say, "So that's where you two went." His voice is clipped, cold. "You want to come back inside?"

David gets up. "I suppose. Jane?"

She also gets up. "I think I'll just head home," she says.

"You sure?" David asks.

Tommy just watches her, looking predatory, looking at her like she disobeyed some law. Right now, it ceases to intimidate her. She looks back at him, thinking, '_You piece of shit_.' "Yeah, I'm sure. I have a lot to do tomorrow morning." She's lying through her teeth, of course, but she shouldn't have to use an excuse. She wants to go.

Tommy says, "I'll walk you home."

Jane dismisses this. "Nah," she tells him. "You should get back to all your fans and admirers. They'll be missing you." She nods to David. "It was a pleasure meeting you," she says, and heads for the door, tucking the water bottle into her purse. She wades past the sea of faces that blur, conversations that come together as senseless, unceasing _noise_. She used to go to so many of these. She used to be one of these people. She used to get drunk and make an ass out of herself, only to later find herself with a hangover that would bring tears to the mightiest of drinkers and sometimes someone who'd stuck his dick in at least one of her orifices. This used to be her life. She cannot, will not go back to that again. Not for anyone, and certainly not for Tommy.

She feels someone grab her shoulder. She yelps and turns around and sees his face.

"I'm going home," she tells him again.

"I thought all drunks were partiers," he tells her.

She wants to slap him so hard across the face that she leaves a permanent red handprint. She wants to spout off any and every obscenity in existence. "You got most of what you wanted. You made me want to drink. You made me feel like shit about myself. You made me very, _very_ uncomfortable and you really, _really_ pissed me off. But I'm leaving now, because I don't feel like doing what you want. I don't feel like risking it anymore. I'm going. You go on and get one of those Hooters girls to suck you off."

Tommy doesn't even wince. "And risk getting an STD? I don't think so." More quietly, he adds, "You sure you don't want me to walk you home?"

Jane sighs and rolls her eyes. "Sure. We can stop at the liquor store on the way and you can make this night even more enjoyable by making me watch as you pick out a few bottles." She's so fucking mad. She could spit out so much more. But she tells herself, over and over again, that he's not worth the energy. She gets her jacket out of the closet, looks back at him, and says, "You are such an unbelievable prick."

As she storms out and damn-near slams the door behind her, Fenroy comes up next to Tommy with a beer in his hand, grinning after her even after she's out. "You, uh, 'tap' that?" he says.

Tommy gives him a look that roughly translates into: _If you don't shut the fuck up you little shit so help me God I will rip out your small intestine and strangle you with it._

**A**

As she walks home she hates him. And she gets the feeling that hatred will pass. It did the last time she was with him, and this makes her angrier. She wants to stay mad at him, but then again, she sees him and feels a pull, an attraction unlike any she has ever felt. She feels something with him, a kind of energy that's intoxicating. There's something there that goes unnamed, unmentioned, that fascinated her, as does every aspect of him. And she's worried that if he calls again she'll pick up the phone and listen. Because it's like the cliché goes: anger breeds passion.

But all this will gradually come to her. For now, she's simply relieved that she got out of there before she got too close and that she doesn't pass any bars or liquor stores on the short walk back home, because, like before, she's craving it. She's craving it bad.

And, like before, she calls Dionne when she's safe in her apartment, in which the strongest beverage is full-sugared Red Bull.

"Jane? Something wrong?" Dionne asks. "It's a bit late for me."

"I'm sorry, Dionne. It's just…Tommy took me to a party where there was all this drinking and hot girls who wanted to get in his pants. I didn't relapse, but there were times I wanted to and I'm fighting a craving right now. I think the chances are good that I would have if I'd passed any bars or liquor stores on my way home." She takes a deep breath. "What the fuck is wrong with him? He knows what a relapse does to a person. What kind of sick freak would purposefully try to make a person relapse?"

"I think I know what it is."

"What is it?"

"He's testing you," Dionne says. "It's not so much that he wants you to relapse, more that he wants to see how you compare to his father. He wants to see if you'll fail like his father did. He thinks you _will_ relapse, with or without his help. Baby, you should stop seeing this man. If he's putting the pressure on you like this, he's not good for you."

Jane closes her eyes. "I know." And, like a fool, like someone with no willpower, she keeps going. "The thing is, though, right up until he found out about the drinking, I felt something with him. He was_ nice_ to me. No guy is nice to me. No straight, young, non-AA guy. And I keep thinking, what if it comes back? I can't stay mad at him. Just walking home I felt nothing but hatred. No matter what shit he pulls though, I end up thinking, he's not that bad. There's some good to him."

"That sounds like all the more reason you should dump him. You're not thinking with your head right now. You're thinking with your pussy."

"_Dionne_!" Jane cries, horrified.

"Just tellin' it like it is, Jane," Dionne says, unperturbed. "Listen to me, now: you're risking your sobriety with Tommy. If he keeps testing you, you just raise the stakes. I told you one year isn't enough sobriety to be ready for a relationship.

"Now, I know you don't have much experience in the legitimate relationships department, so let me make this clear: people in relationships, particularly in the early stages and whether they mean to or not, whether they realize it or not, test each other. You're testing him for something, too. What are you testing him for?"

"To not treat me like a freak for having an addiction," Jane says.

"And he failed that one, obviously. Anything else? You've told me about boys who took advantage of you."

"Well, okay. I also don't want him to pressure me into sex right away. So far he hasn't. And I…I really hated those girls hitting on him and trying to jump his bones. I don't want him to hit on other girls."

"Did he?"

From what she saw… "No," Jane admits. "He had his arm around my waist most of the night. Was kind of possessive, actually."

"So he's also testing you to make sure you don't flirt with other guys. That's not the important thing, though. We both know, and if he has a lick of sense he knows too that you're not that kind of person. You only have eyes for him, which is part of the problem.

"And, much as I hate to say it, it's natural for him to mistrust addicts if he grew up with one."

"I remember a meeting where Patrick said he relapsed after 'his younger son' said a few things to him that made him lose hope. But I don't think he was trying to make his dad drink again."

"Neither do I, but my guess is that he wants to see if it happens to you. If you break like his father did. And I'm telling you, he's gonna keep testing you."

"When will he stop?"

Dionne pauses on the other end. "When he sees you as a person. Not a drunk. Not a pair of tits, but a real human being with whom he can connect."

Jane clutches her cell phone. "What if that doesn't happen?" she asks.

"You're seriously asking that question? You know what you'll have to do."

"Yeah, I know." Jane looks at a blank spot on the wall, nods to herself. "Bye. Sorry I kept you up."

If it doesn't happen, she'll have to walk out. She's certain Tommy won't. He'll make a game out if it, he'll push her. There's a lifetime of resentment and mistrust with him. There's so much rage, so much pain, and so help her, she's drawn like a moth to flame.


	14. Second Test

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

**Chapter Fourteen: Second Test**

She gets a call after a step meeting the next Wednesday. She knows without having to see the number who it is.

"You got plans for Saturday?" he asks.

A fair amount of the anger has dissipated, just as she expected. Now she feels resolved. More focused than she's felt in a very long time. It feels odd that her head should feel clear at a time like this, but it's better than rage. "Why?" As if she doesn't know.

"I'd like to take you out," he says.

"To another party?" Jane says, silently adding '_Asshole'_.

"Nah. I don't like parties."

"So, what, a wine-tasting convention?" she wants to keep the edge in her voice as much as possible even if she's not on the verge of spilling obscenities. It doesn't matter, because he sounds almost amused by it, encouraged by it.

"I was thinking a restaurant."

And Jane's thinking, '_There must be a catch_.' "Really?" she says. "Is that such a wise decision, considering what happened last time?"

"Might as well give it another go. It's a little more low-key, a little farther away, though. We'll have to drive. It's called the Royal Mile. You heard of it?"

"Yeah. It's not too far from the diner." She's never been there. Until that…date…with Tommy, she hadn't dined out in Pittsburgh.

"I'll pick you up at seven?"

Fuck it. "All right." After she hangs up, she thinks grimly, _'Bring it on, G.I. Joe.'_

**F**

"That was some seriously fucked up shit you pulled, man."

These are the first words David says when he calls Tommy at work Thursday.

"What?" That's not the kind of greeting you expect at any time, least of all work.

"You brought a recovering alcoholic with a low self-esteem to a party filled with alcohol and big-tittied girls rubbing up on you. You knew what that was going to do to her. You were trying to taunt her into a relapse."

And, of course, he plays innocent. "Oh, come on. It's not like I was forcing her to drink or going after those big-tittied girls. Besides, how do you know she has a low self-esteem?"

"I talked to her while you were too busy getting your ass kissed to realize she'd gone outside, remember? She has no idea what you found attractive in her and is convinced you don't like her anymore."

Here Tommy's at kind of a loss. Does he? He says the first thing that comes to him. "If I didn't find something worth liking, I wouldn't even have bothered talking to her after she told me she used to drink."

"That's what I told her. She came close to relapsing. You ever seen someone with over a year's sobriety relapse, what it does to them?"

He thinks of Pop, thinks of his haunted, pained, panicked eyes; he remember seeing him sway and fall; he remembers thinking without a trace of satisfaction, '_I have finally broken this man, after spending over half my life wanting to hurt him. I broke the old man's heart and his clean little world._' "Yeah," he says. "My old man."

"You saw what it did. I bet you sealed the deal on a break-up with a nice girl who's trying to get her life in order at a young age."

Tommy grins a little, thinks, '_Wrong_.' "Actually, I asked her out again yesterday and she said yes."

There's a little silence on the other end. "Then she's crazy about you. She must love you."

The word "love" catches. It tugs and pulls. "How would _you_ know? She tell you?"

"She didn't need to. I know because if she didn't she'd have dropped you like a stone. You're a lucky man. See you in a month." And he hangs up.

Love? He's not about to be guilt-tripped into blindly trusting a drunk. He doubts Jane is likely to give him a concussion or throw him down a flight of stairs like his Pop did during blackouts, but right now he can't_ not _believe she'll do something to fuck him up. Some female equivalent. He can't put aside what he remembers; try as he might to forget.

**E**

She meets him outside Saturday at seven. She notices the car parked outside. It belongs to Patrick.

"Nice car," she says, because she doesn't feel the need to say "Hello" or any other such pleasantries. Not sure she'd be able to even if she did.

"You recognize it?" he says as they walk to the car. He surprises her by continuing to act the gentleman by opening the passenger-side door for her.

She might as well be honest. "Yeah. It's your father's."

"He lent it to me," he says simply. "So you _do_ know him from meetings."

"Yes."

"What the two of you talk about?" he asks as he starts driving. She notices his knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

"That is none of your business," she says, sitting back and looking over at him. His coat's in the back seat and he's wearing a black sweater that fits snugly over a body she still can't stop ogling. _ 'If he's going to be a prick, he might as well look good doing it.' _He clenches his jaw, stares straight ahead. "You don't talk about what goes on in meetings outside of them. If you talk about something in a meeting, it's meant to stay in confidence."

"That one of the steps?"

"One of the traditions, actually."

He looks over at her. She herself wasn't sure how well or casually she should dress, and with her jacket in her lap along with her purse the top she's wearing has a neckline that exposes the top one of her tattoos, one on her left shoulder blade that catches his view as she leans down to set her purse on the floor by her feet. She catches him looking, and he looks back at the road, as if ashamed for showing any interest. She sighs. This is going to be a long night. It's more awkward and impersonal than the night they met.

"You look pretty," Tommy says finally.

"Thanks," Jane tells him. "You don't look so bad yourself." He never does. Even with his inability to shave on a regular basis and his crooked teeth, she's never seen him fall below a nine in terms of looks. If anything, it adds to a certain raw appeal. She thinks about what David told her. Does he prefer someone who looks like her, someone tall, awkward, short-haired and pale-skinned to someone who looks like, say, Sienna Miller? And if so, what is _wrong_ with him? No one prefers her to that.

Is he still interested? There's a lot to be said for the argument that if he wasn't, he'd have stopped talking to her altogether. But his interest no longer seems to be romantic. Putting her into tempting, uncomfortable situations as if conducting an experiment is not something one does to a girlfriend.

A couple of minutes later they pull into a public parking lot and, as they get out, Jane notices the quaint sign reading, "The Royal Mile Pub and Restaurant."

Oh, _shit_.

She plays it by ear. If he tries to lead her into the bar…shit. They drove. This isn't going to be good. She'll find a way out. He isn't going to get away with doing this to her.

"I'm not going to a bar," she tells him before they reach the door.

He seems to have expected this reaction. And he acts completely nonchalant, as though he'd never given her reason to think he'd so blatantly shove alcohol under her nose. "Hey, fine with me," he says, opening the door for him.

"I was taking you to the restaurant part of it, anyway."

And he does. A smiling seating hostess who could very well still be in high school leads them to a table for two next to the wall. Neither of them talks for close to thirty seconds, and Jane finally says, "I like the décor of this place. It has kind of a rustic feel. Have you been here before?"

"Yeah, when I was a kid. I hear it's pretty much the same place, even with new management. It looks about the same."

A server not much older than the seating hostess comes by and passes them both menus, asks if they know what they'd like to drink.

"Water," she says.

"Water and a beer," Tommy says. He gives a sideways glance towards Jane, like, _what? You thought I was done testing you? _

"What brand?"

"Guinness Draught, please," he says, still watching Jane, even as he opens his menu.

She opens hers, and as she keeps her eyes on laminated entrée options and prices, she says, "So what's good here?"

"Everything, from what I remember," he says.

"What about the salmon? Is that good?"

"Probably."

It's excruciating, sitting there in silence, wanting to say something without really knowing what. She peeks over at him a few times and is certain he's going through the same conflict.

Their drinks arrive. They're both ready to order. The server looks confused by their brusque interactions as Tommy folds up his menu and says, "You want an appetizer?"

"No. You?"

"No." He nods at her as if telling her to order first.

She smiles at the server, who by now is wondering if maybe he interrupted an argument they were having. "The North Atlantic Salmon, please," she says, handing him her menu.

"Roasted chicken, please."

As the boy scurries off Jane takes a sip of water. "I'm so used to the diner it seems weird when there are male servers."

"So, what, there aren't any guys dressed like greasers trying to talk like they're from the fifties?"

"No. Just waitresses. And while he's not technically allowed to do it, I'm pretty sure the manager has weight and age restrictions as part of his hiring policy. But I mean, with your gym Boyd probably only hires people who've fought before."

"Not necessarily. Fenroy's never fought. He'd probably die in the first round of a match. And Colt's sure as hell's never fought."

"Just out of curiosity, what ended up happening to the guy you beat up twice?"

"He moved to Chicago after Sparta."

Even with the tense small talk and her determination to not look at the beer in a beautiful glass mug resting across the table, Jane can't help but laugh. "He moved to the Midwest so he wouldn't have to face you again?" she says, thinking that given just how genuinely brutal and without show Tommy is, fleeing hundreds of miles away in fear and humiliation kind of makes sense. She doesn't feel the least bit sorry for the guy, but still.

Tommy shrugs as he takes a sip of beer. "That's not what he said, but it's been suggested."

This isn't as obvious a test as the one before, but it's a test all the same. He knows she can't and won't drink. Step one. Step two: see if she can stand someone else drinking in front of her. Not just mingling with people holding beers but sitting across from someone for an extended period of time, someone who's drinking and doesn't care if it makes her uncomfortable. She wonders, given his level of fitness, if he drinks much if at all when he's not testing her.

And he breaches the topic, the dirty, awful thing that keeps her tainted in his eyes. "Do your non-AA friends know?"

She doesn't have many friends outside of AA anymore but the ones she has she trusts well enough with the information. "Yes, they know," she says.

"And…?"

"And they think it's kind of insane that I started so early. They're relieved I got help early. Beyond that, they don't really care."

"Oh, they don't?" Tommy shifts in his seat, a little farther away from her.

"No, they don't," Jane tells him. _Not everyone has major family and rage issues that can't be helped with a non-professional_, she silently adds. "They don't take me out to bars and they don't usually drink in front of me, but otherwise they kind of ignore it." She gives his beer a pointed look and thinks, _you asshole._

He gets the look on her face and to let her know he both understands and doesn't give a shit he raises the mug to his lips, and takes a long sip, looking at her with a petulant look in his eye. She wonders why the hell she's still sitting with him.

She tries to fill the void. "You have friends from service, right?"

And Tommy takes a gulp from his beer, the largest she's seen so far. "A few," he says. "Most of them are dead. I don't want to…"

"You don't want to talk about it," Jane says quickly, silently cursing herself. "Right. Consider the subject dropped."

He's not good for her. He's not good for her sobriety.

She stays.

He takes a sip of water before taking a long look at her under heavily-lidded eyes and saying, "So what's the real reason you came to Pittsburgh?"

A man who keeps secrets from her unless it's in a fit of uncensored rage has no right to go prodding into her past. And then she recalls how he answered most of her questions after a series of tell-all clips on YouTube that turned him from a normal, albeit quiet, athletic man to a volatile fighting machine until she could calm down and remember the person she'd known is still the person he is. "Rehab," she tells him. "There was a center in downtown Pittsburgh. There was nothing for me back in D.C., so I figured I may as well stay and start off new here."

"What were you running from?" he asks her, quiet enough that the question could almost be mistaken for polite.

"None of your goddamn business," she tells him in an equally pleasant tone of voice. "Not while you think all addicts are scum."

"Try me."

"I don't think so. All you need to know is that there was nothing worth going back to at home."

"Not even family?" Tommy asks, as though it's a little joke between them. They both know how much families can suck.

She doesn't want to feed him some sob story, but he asked, so fuck him. "Dad died when I was in rehab, my mother and I weren't speaking, I'm an only child and I wanted to keep as much of a distance from my extended family as possible." She takes a sip of water, wondering how she can put this in a way that won't lead to him mocking her relentlessly, and finds she doesn't care.

"I found a new kind of family in rehab, and in AA," she adds.

"An even more fucked-up family?" he asks, with only a hint of scorn in his voice.

She overlooks it for now. "A family of people who understood what I was going through because they were going through it too, or had gone through it and made it out alive. They had my back and I had theirs. There wasn't any judgment of any kind. I found my sponsor here—"

"Your what?"

"My sponsor. A sponsor is someone who's had a long enough period of sobriety that he or she can help someone who's a little newer through withdrawal and into sobriety. She's a lifeline for me."

"And you love her like a mother."

"I love her more than my mother, to be honest," she says, even laughs a little as if to lighten the statement. "I mean, my mother's a good person, we've patched things up a lot in the past year, but…"

"But she can't relate to what you've been through," Tommy finishes for her.

"Or what I'm still going through," she says.

The server comes by with their food, and the following silence between them is separated into two measurements: the nervous picking at food because they're almost too uncomfortable to eat; the second is the hunger and the welcoming smell of a hot meal on a cold night and the first several bites of some of the best salmon she's ever had.

After a few minutes, though, she adds, "Some of the strongest friendships are built when a person's at their most vulnerable."

Tommy nods, not quite looking at her. "I know," he says, takes a sip of water and chases it with a sip of beer. It's not a terribly large mug. He'll need a refill soon.

She glances at the numbered tattoo peeking out of the V-neck of his sweater, the hint that there may be more, scattered across a taut, powerful body. No, this would not be a good time to mention her tattoo fetish. She's not sure where they stand anymore. She gets part of it though. What he's doing isn't a scheming plot to get her back on the bottle. It's fueled by rage that holds neither reason nor rhyme. She understands that rage. She's felt it before. It's not clean anger in which plans are formed in a clear mind.

"Hey, can I ask something?" he says. She shrugs. "Why a butterfly?"

He's talking about her tattoo. "Butterflies are many things that I'm not," she says. "They're vibrant, they're graceful and beautiful." She ignores how he raises his eyebrows when she says this. "But the main reason I got this was because in many cultures butterflies symbolize life and rebirth. I got this when I was six months sober because it just felt right. Felt as though the past twenty years were a past life and this was where my new life began." She doesn't care if it sounds stupid to him, either, just goes back to her meal, avoiding his gaze, though she senses him watch her before she hears the clattering of silverware across from her.

Shortly afterward the server comes by, gets a refill for both of their waters and asks Tommy if he wants another beer. She looks down, but when she hears the hesitation can't help but look up as Tommy glances at her before saying no.

If this is another test, she may well have passed it, although it would be stupid and in very bad form indeed to think she's in the clear yet.

The rest of the dinner goes by relatively quickly; they're both fast eaters and they don't know much of what to say. They're still entirely uncomfortable around each other and aside from when they push around the silverware and glasses to briefly switch plates, she can't really remember what they talk about; probably just trivial shit. The portion sizes are reasonable enough that neither of them want to get the rest of their meals boxed up and they divide the check—with some half-hearted protest on Tommy's part—and pay the bill.

She's the one who drives to her apartment. One medium beer isn't much but she's not about to take her chances. In any case, he'll have to take the wheel for several blocks to get home.

When she slides off her seatbelt and turns to wish him a good night—and, as far as she can feel, meaning it—she realizes he's undone his own seatbelt. Her mind goes blank, body unsure as he leans in and cups the side of her face with a large, calloused hand. And then she catches that unmistakable whiff of beer and reels back, flinching as though she's been struck. It's a smell that will always remind her of dizzy half-dreams that turned out to be memories of falling back, uncoordinated, unable to speak and an easy target, and the stench of beer-breath against her face, her neck.

"I—I don't think that's a good idea," she says, leaning as far away from him as she can.

He furrows his brow. "That bad?" he says.

"You know how people with dairy allergies will sometimes go into hives after kissing someone who's just had cheese?"

Tommy tilts his head at her. "You're saying you can get drunk from one kiss."

"Not drunk," she tells him. "Just…sparked and thirsty for more." Oh Christ that sounds suggestive. "A taste sparks a craving. All it takes is a taste, Tommy." And it's true in the accidentally suggestive meaning as well. She doesn't want to tell him that, though. She can't.

He can't be drunk. All he had was one beer and she's seen him down at least two shots of whiskey while remaining relatively sober, so why is he trying to…?

And a thought occurs. She looks away from him, as he's still poised to touch her somehow. "Whatever you're thinking right now," she says, "Stop."

She bets his eyes flash from the forced calm in his voice when he asks, "And what am I thinking?"

She can't quite look him in the eye. He's too intense right now and the subject too embarrassing, too impersonal. "That because I'm a drunk I'm a whore, and by extension, because I'm a former drunk I'm under the delusion that I'm some kind of asexual puritan. You think that I'll do any act you want once you start showing me an ounce of kindness again."

The slight hesitation is enough for her to know she's somewhere in the ballpark. "You're not a whore," he tells her.

"You're saying it but do you really believe it? It kind of goes along with your belief that all drunks are partiers, right?" She has to keep her distance. It would be too much for him to know that whenever she thinks about him, whenever she's near him she and her body remembers that she's far from asexual. That she wants to do all the things someone with years of experience should have done. She wants to undress him and see everything, every part of him; she wants to trace, among other things, his tattoos with her lips and fingertips, her tongue and teeth. She can't tell him that whenever he's in her proximity, her heart beats so hard it threatens to tear out of her chest, her mouth goes dry, there's a ringing in her ears and in the places she tries to ignore. Because she's terrified. Because the only people who've fucked her saw her as nothing other than a drunken slut; convinced her that that was all she ever was, and if she goes through with anything now, so will Tommy.

He looks her over, reads into her blatant fear better than she would have imagined. "What happened to you?" he asks.

How does she explain it without giving away too much and without him probing further? She takes a deep breath, looks down as if addressing her lap and, though she struggles, eventually finds the words. "All you need to know is that you're not the only one here who's been physically abused. It's just that what happened to me wasn't inflicted by a member of my family, and never took the form of a punch in the face." She doesn't want to look back up at him, for all the shame involved. Terrified, humiliated, and still angry, though, she looks him in the eye.

Tommy gets it. He gets it immediately, and slumps back in his seat. And she sees he's struggling with what the hell he could possibly say in this situation. She doesn't expect it of him. She takes her purse and opens the driver's side door. It takes every ounce of will to not go back and put her mouth on two of the most intoxicating things she's ever known: alcohol and Tommy Riordan.

Before she closes the door she adds, "If you stop seeing me as a stereotype and start seeing me as a person, give me a call."


	15. Brendan

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

At long last, I'm returning to the strife and complicated relationships between the three Conlon men. Because really, Brendan needs to come back into Tommy's life. He's just too good of a brother to push away forever.

And yes, I know it's fourteen years between the time Brendan and Tommy became estranged and SPARTA. I started writing this shortly after watching the film and for some reason thought I'd heard 'sixteen years' and started writing it as such. I feel that if I was initially incorrect, I may as well be consistent, except with Brendan's daughters's names and the fact that I was just stupid enough to initially write Tommy as having his right shoulder dislocated instead of his left. That I will absolutely change.

**Chapter Fifteen: Brendan**

Tommy may not remember Paddy's birthday, but he doubts he'll ever forget Brendan's. They'd been close. Being only two years apart in age and sharing most of the same hopes and fears will do that. He'd always felt as though his defense-never-offense older brother was the sanest one out of them and definitely the brighter of the two of them. He'd been something of a role model. It had made his betrayal all the more painful. Hearing, "I'm not going with you," and not being able to change those words no matter how much he tried to tell his older brother that blood is thicker than water, there are tons of other girls out there but only one mother and only one brother, is something he's kept close to him all these years.

But that was when they were fourteen and sixteen. Now Brendan's turning thirty-three next week. And he knows, knows without any doubt; that he needs to talk to his brother again.

**F**

Paddy knows this is probably a stupid idea, a_ really_ stupid idea, but he does it anyway: he dials Brendan's number.

His throat constricts when he hears his son's voice on the other end say, "Hello?" He feels ashamed of the last few times they've spoken face to face, hoping Brendan won't hang up on him.

"Hi, Brendan. How are you?"

There's a moment in which he's almost glad he can't see Brendan's face before he says, "Pop? What is it?"

"Well, I figured, your birthday's coming up and I wanted to send you a gift, maybe a fun book—I remember you really liked reading. I was wondering if you'd maybe heard of David Sedaris?"

"I've heard of him. Haven't read him." He sounds as uncomfortable as Paddy feels. "Listen, Pop, I appreciate that you're trying to meet me halfway but…but I can't let you back in quite yet. Back in the house, anyway."

He tries to lighten it up. "That's why I offered to mail it to you. I remember the post office was still open as a line of communication."

"What I mean is…"

"No, I know." Paddy adjusts his grip on the phone. "And I understand. I shouldn't have pretended that I was the victim here."

There's some relief in Brendan's voice when he responds, a little looser, a little more openly annoyed. "You really shouldn't have. I mean, do you even remember what you were like all those years?"

"I was blacked out for a lot of it," Paddy says. There's a sigh on the other end of the phone. "You and Tommy are the ones who have a clear memory of everything, and how you both have held it is a pretty good idea of how badly I fucked up as a parent.

"And, um, speaking of Tommy," he starts, closes his eyes and for a moment waits for the click signaling that Brendan's just hung up on him. It doesn't come. "At risk of sounding like a meddling old man, I think the two of you should talk."

Again, he waits for the click. It doesn't come, but Brendan's voice is strained as he says, "What gives you the right to say that?"

"Absolutely nothing," Paddy admits.

"And what makes you think that Tommy wants to speak to me?"

Point taken. The man could be absolutely venomous. He could attest. "With the fight…yes, you injured him but he's started building himself back up like he never could have done if you hadn't. He's not as angry. He ain't no ray of sunshine, but he's not as angry. Nor for the past month or so, anyway, now that he has more freedom of movement."

After a hesitation on the other end, Brendan says, "David Sedaris sounds nice, Pop. Thanks."

**E**

"Tommy? It's me, Brendan." He expects the silence on the other end. They haven't spoken in over three months, and before the fight hadn't spoken in over a decade. He's starting to think Pop's advice was a load of bullshit; a manipulative old man's hopes to get his two sons to talk again.

"Hi," comes his brother's voice over the phone, brusque and rough. Not this again. "Your birthday's on Sunday."

"Yeah. That was why I wanted to talk to you, actually. Thing is, I'm having a small party then, just family and a couple of close family-friends." He leans against his desk, holds onto the edge of it for support, because these are not words that come easily and he'll be damned if Tommy dismisses it like he's dismissed his previous offers to repair their relationship. "I never stopped seeing you as family, even if you did. I always hoped that I'd get to spend a birthday with my little brother again."

There's a lingering silence on the other end. It doesn't come as a surprise. "Is that who I am?"

"Yeah. That's who you are. And I'm hoping you'd be willing to come over and talk as family, not as competitors."

"It don't look like we'll ever be competing again. Not in the cage, anyway." The tone is a little less suspicious, a little less hostile.

"I've retired for good," Brendan tells him.

"Yeah, I heard. Brendan…"

He waits, but nothing comes. It's as though Tommy wants to communicate something that can't be spoken. He helps him out. "You're not obligated to come, Tommy."

And then his brother says something spoken almost in a rush, something that takes him by surprise. "Can I bring someone?"

"Who do you have in mind? I can't let Pop back into the house. Not yet, anyway. There was something that happened before he sobered up. Well, not really just one thing."

"It's not Pop. It's a…friend."

The way Tommy hesitates, phrases it, is something Brendan has never heard from his brother, who is by now a grown man who at the moment comes across almost as adolescent. It's a bridge they never crossed. He's certain Tommy never got some of the social luxuries that are so easy to take for granted. He's felt guilt over it before.

"_I'm glad you stayed. Everything worked out for you, 'kay? You leave, you get the opposite. You leave, you get to bury people."_

He can't help the teasing smile snaking its way into his voice. "A girlfriend?"

"…Kind of," his brother says, once again in a manner Brendan has never heard from him. "I kinda fucked things up with her. I don't know if she'd be up for it."

"If she is," he says, starting to allow himself to breathe—Tommy did imply, by asking to bring someone, that he'd be coming—"Would three be good for the two of you?"

"I'll ask." And after a pause, Tommy adds, "Is there anything you'd want me to bring or get you?"

And he says something he means with every part of his soul. "Just coming will be the best gift you could give me."

Before ending the conversation, Tommy says one last thing. "Brendan." There's a slight urgency in his voice.

"Yeah?"

"This girl; she don't drink."

He blinks. Considering it was a small family affair he hadn't really thought of setting out alcohol. "Okay."

After the end of the call, he realizes that all those months ago when Pop drove the length of Pennsylvania to tell him about his sobriety and Tommy, he wasn't gloating. He was trying, however tactlessly, to pick up the pieces of his broken family and get the three Conlons—or rather, the two Conlons and the Riordan, now—together again. Trying to set out the bait—"Tommy's back"—in the hopes of coaxing Brendan back, in the hopes that things between the three of them could be salvaged. Now the old man's certain he won't be a part of that family, but has hope for his two sons to repair their own relationship all the same.

A

Nearly a week goes by without a call. She's pretty sure that means the end. That Tommy can't handle being with someone who has as much extra baggage as _he_ does. It's a shame. If he's looking for either someone with no faults or skeletons in her closet he'll be alone, which would be unfortunate because in spite of the rage and the long-standing grudges, he is at his core a good man.

Saturday after a morning meeting she turns her cell phone back on to see she missed a call from a number she's had memorized since she first learned it. She debates whether or not to bother returning the call throughout her walk home, and finally figures, why the hell not? She can listen to whatever he has to say, take it or leave it. She doesn't have to agree with him or accept anything from him.

When she calls back he gets it on the first ring.

"Jane?"

"That's my name," she says as she gets back into her apartment and locks the door one-handed.

"I need your help with something," he says.

She's sorely tempted to hang up on him. "I doubt that," she says.

"My brother invited me to come to his birthday."

"And?"

"And I don't know how the fuck I'll be able to get through it. I need a friend there."

Her temper flares. No; it erupts. "Really? Is that what I am? A friend?" She doesn't wait for him to respond. She can't, really; she's boiling over and there's nothing she can do about it. "Because yelling at me in public, treating me like some untouchable low-life, testing me with alcohol and girls who'd fuck you if given half the chance, and taking me out just so you can make me feel like shit is _not_ how you treat a friend." She's pretty sure the volume her voice has reached can be classified as "shouting." Her breath is harsh, her hands are shaking and she feels the threat of tears, tears of anger or tears of frustration, she's not sure. She keeps telling herself she won't cry over him. She turns the phone away from her face so he won't hear her choking back the sobs that wrack her throat. She wraps her free arm around her stomach, because it lurches, feels as though she's about to throw up. "A real friend would still treat me like a human being after finding out that I have skeletons in my closet just like everyone else on the _fucking _planet. Don't you fucking _dare_ ask me to help you."

And before she hangs up, she hears, "His name's Brendan."

She blinks; she can scarcely breathe, but something in her mind, when she's way too far-gone to think straight, clicks. "_What_?"

"My brother's name is Brendan." He says it as though it's being tortured out of him.

She'd like to think that she's heard wrong, but it goes with what she's seen, what she's heard from Tommy. When he said they were related, he never mentioned exactly how. She should've pieced it together when he told her about growing up with Paddy Conlon beating the shit out of "me, my mother and my brother" and how "Brendan Conlon and I learned to take a punch" from him, but she'd been in such a rage that she's surprised she can remember what he said. She's completely at a loss. She can't and won't forgive him right now but neither can she bring herself to hang up quite yet.

"_Conlon_?" she whispers.

"Yeah."

She finds she has to cross to the couch, sinks onto it. "The man you fought, the man who dislocated your shoulder, is your brother." She lets out a shaking breath, doesn't know quite what else to say. It makes much more sense as to why Tommy would be afraid to go there alone, assuming that Patrick won't be joining, which she is certain is the case.

"I fucked up." She tunes back in when she hears Tommy's voice again. He sounds imploring, sounds almost impatient. She can almost hear him say '_I don't talk much so when I do it's something important that you need to understand_.' "I know I fucked up. I thought you were going to fuck me up somehow, and it made me feel like I had to get to you first. I don't know why, I just did." These are words that won't make up for everything Tommy has said and done to her in the past few weeks, but there's something gratifying about hearing them now. "I just needed to know."

"That I wasn't a carbon copy of the image you have based on one other person of everyone who's ever been in the twelve steps?" Her voice sounds higher than usual; sounds brittle, breaking.

"Kind of, yeah," he says, on the defensive. "I saw the pathetic, needy guy he became. _I fuckin' saw him hit the goddamn bottle again_."

"Did you want him to relapse?"

"_No_. I wanted him to leave me the hell alone. I wanted him to understand that he'd had the chance to be my father years ago and he threw it away and he's not getting it back."

"And I stand by my earlier claim: I'm not your goddamn father."

"I know." His breath on the other end is harsh.

And, like a fool, not understanding why, because her decisions are never conscious with him, hold neither reason nor rhyme, she sighs and leans into the couch. "When is it?"

"Tomorrow at three."

"All right."

"In Philadelphia."

She should say no now. That would be the smart, normal thing to do. "That's gotta be a five-hour drive," she tells him, as if he doesn't know already.

"…Yeah," he says on the other end, a hint of apology in his voice.

She sits back and thinks.

He must be terrified to do this, to go down and face his brother again. There's so much she doesn't know about their relationship prior to SPARTA, but from the clues she has, it's not pretty. She guesses there's no small amount of rage still rattling inside that sometimes dark mind of his.

Maybe it's because she's stupid.

Maybe it's because she's crazy.

Maybe it's because she's weak.

"Just tell me he's not a partier or some swinging bachelor or a real-life Quagmire or something," she says. She's done with the tests. Finished. She doesn't care if he still has some lined up.

"He's a family man. He got two young kids who're probably gonna be there." There's something damn snide, downright contentious in the way he says 'family man.' She figures she should make a note of it and put it alongside her countless other unresolved observations about him. After a beat, "Who's Quagmire?"

She can't help but smile to himself. "Cartoon character. But that's not the point." She hesitates, doesn't want to bend to his will but he's right; he can't do this alone. Not yet, anyway. And there's something oddly, sickly satisfying about hearing him admit that he needs help, and, what's more, needs _her_ help. "Yeah. Fine. I'll do it."

"I'll pick you up at ten," he says.

"All right."

Before she can click 'end', Tommy says, "Jane?"

"Hmm?"

There's a beat. She could almost swear she hears a hint of a smile in his voice. "Thank you."


	16. Brothers Part One

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

_The family dinner will be broken up into two chapters_.

Congratulations and hooray for Nick Nolte, who's just been nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor! I'd had my fingers crossed on that one. I'm still kind of annoyed it didn't get recognition for anything else (Best Cinematography; Best Film Editing; Best Original Song; Best Actor (for either Hardy or Edgerton); Best Picture or Best Director). Ah, well. It will go down as one of the most underrated films of 2011.

Also, a six or seven-year-old Tommy Riordan running laps around the house to me seems kind of cute. A fellow I knew in high school had a hard-ass military father who made him undergo such a regimen at that age.

**Chapter Sixteen: Brothers (Part One)**

Jane tells Dionne she won't be able to make the meeting on Jefferson Street Sunday.

"I'm going to be in Philly tomorrow," she says. "Family thing."

"Since when do you have family in Philly?"

She's got her there. "It's not exactly _my_ family."

Dionne huffs on the other end of the line. "Jane, you are a sucker for that man. He got you wrapped around his finger, and you don't seem to get how dangerous it is."

"He's the kind of person who doesn't accept help from people. He doesn't ask for anything from anyone unless he really, _really _needs it. And he needs me to be there."

"Why?"

"It's his estranged brother and his family. He has too much rage, too much fear, too much pain to face him alone."

"And I take it Patrick's not going to be there?"

"Correct."

"I really hope you know what you're getting yourself into."

"I think I do."

"I doubt it. You are way too in love to think straight."

She's left breathless for a moment, face flushed. "I think you're exaggerating it a bit," she says eventually, trying to laugh. "You tend to get a bit flowery with words, you know."

Dionne sounds smug on the other end. "If you say so."

**F**

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Tess asks, gives her husband a tentative look as she comes back from her morning run; the one time she has to be alone and to clear her mind. This apparently has interfered with that last bit, and she won't let him forget it. "You have to admit, he's not exactly stable."

"I'm sure about it." Brendan says; pouring a cup of coffee for her as she takes a long gulp from a water bottle she's taken out of the fridge. "Tess, I need this. I think Tommy needs this, too. I get why you're worried."

"Brendan, I barely remember him back from when he was a kid. What I remember him as is the guy who practically tried to kill you in the cage. _Yes_, I'm worried. How will he act around the girls? They don't know anything about him. He'll probably terrify them. He looks like he just broke out of prison."

"Tess," he says, softly now, sets the coffee cup aside and pulls her to him. "Tess," he says even quieter. "I've waited half my life for this. Don't worry about Tommy. I'll handle it."

**E**

He picks her up around five of ten, once again in Patrick's car.

"Does he know where you're going with it?" Jane asks as she gets in.

Tommy starts driving. "He knows. He's the one who suggested I borrow it."

He sighs after a moment and glances her way. "I'll tell you everything once we reach the freeway."

Jane nods. "I guess it's a long story," she says.

"We got about five hours."

He fills up the tank at a gas station near the freeway, and when they get on, Tommy finally starts talking.

"He's turning thirty-three."

"To be honest I thought he looked a little older."

Tommy shrugs. "He's had it rough at times, too.

"He was the older brother. I thought he was the better one. Pop paid more attention to me, even though Brendan worked harder for it."

"Why?"

He glances her way. "I was a really athletic kid."

"I kind of figured as much. Any sport in particular?"

He nods. "Wrestling. I did a little bit of track to help with conditioning, but wrestling was my focus. And Paddy Conlon did a shitty job as Brendan I's father, but he was one hell of a trainer. It was the only time he was ever close to sober. Had me start when I was still a little kid, running laps around the house and shit. Brendan got into sports later. Maybe he hoped he'd get some approval for it. I didn't get why he wanted the attention in the first place. He had talents that I didn't. He was a lot smarter than me."

"You're not stupid."

He laughs. There's no humor in it. "Well, that's nice of you. But I'm sure you realized that you're nine years younger than me, studying part-time at a two-year school, and have already had more of an education than I ever will."

"Just because you're not that well educated doesn't mean you're stupid. Education and intellect don't always go hand in hand."

Tommy considers this. "That sounds kind of like something Brendan would say," he says. "Until he became a teacher, anyway. I bet he now tells people to stay in school like he did."

"I think that's part of the job description."

There's another lingering silence.

"We were close. Mom protected us when we were too little to do anything, and when we got older we tried to protect her. He…there was always something a little different about him. Like he was always above this, always meant for something better than the rest of us. I mean, he didn't think anything like that, but I guess it turned out I was right." He's trying hard to talk, but drifts in and out and frequently hesitates. It's just not part of who he is, really. But she'll listen. She's got half an hour down, another four and a half hours to go, plus the car ride home for him to find the words. She'll help him out as much as she can.

"What drove the two of you apart?" she says.

He says nothing at first. His fists clench on the steering wheel. "I said I'd tell you everything, didn't I?" he says quietly, more to himself than to her.

"When I was fourteen and he was sixteen and finishing up the school year, the three of us made a plan to leave. We were going to leave home, get away from the old man and find a way to survive on our own."

A couple of memories of his earlier words fall into place. "You moved away when you were fourteen, you and your mother. You wanted to get away from your father." She takes from his silence that she's got that part. "But not Brendan."

Tommy's knuckles are bone-white on the steering wheel. "He told us at the last minute he was going to stay behind. He had a girlfriend. He said he loved her and he wouldn't leave her, not for anything. And he didn't. No matter what we told him, he stayed."

"And your mother died of cancer two years later."

"Lung cancer. I think that's what it was. She never got it treated. When we left we lost everything. Money, insurance, everything. We already knew she had TB. But the coughing, the coughing up blood, all the weight she lost and the pain she was in, the fact that she always had trouble breathing. She probably had it when we left and didn't know about it."

"And you never forgave him for it."

"He chose a girl over us, and we needed him more."

"What happened to the girl?"

His jaw tightens. He seems at loathe to say it, and she immediately gets why when he does. "You'll meet her at the party."

"They got married?"

"He rubbed it in my face when we saw each other again. He acted as if that made up for everything. He got everything he wanted when he stayed behind and he thought that would make me feel better."

"When did you guys talk again?"

"A couple of nights before we fought."

"You had another fight before the larger one."

"He said he forgave Pop. I didn't believe him." He glances at her. "I still don't believe him. Not about that, anyway."

He starts focusing on the driving aspect. There's little traffic to worry about. There's something that's been on her mind since she saw the video.

"What did he say to you at the end of the fight, right before you tapped out? And right after?"

He said he'd tell her everything. Right now he looks like he wants to go back on that statement.

"All right. Never mind." She sits back, kind of hopes he'll say it anyway, but he takes her words at face value and says nothing for a while.

Finally he starts again. "With Pop, he was only there for me if it was to train me, and I never expected anything more from him than that. But with Brendan…" he thins his lips, "With Brendan, he was there for Mom and me until it mattered most."

For so few words it gets the point across. A fourteen year old kid finding his brother choosing girlfriend over family after years of thinking they could depend on each other. A fourteen-year-old kid with his life thrown into complete disarray; no money, no real home, no insurance and a sick mother. And then having to sort it out alone.

She doesn't know what she could possibly say to him that would mean anything. The words "I'm so sorry" are nearly on the tip of her tongue, are nearly all she can think. She's starting to understand more and more where all that rage and all that hatred comes from, and just how badly life screwed Tommy Riordan over.

"You didn't see each other again for sixteen years?"

There's a continuing silence. "I spent so long hating him. In the ring I think I wanted to kill him; wanted to rip his fuckin' head off. I might still want to rip his head off. I don't know."

"And that's why you wanted to bring me?" Jane says, though it isn't really a question.

He looks over at her in silence.

A

Really, there isn't much to say, and there's even less that Tommy can really tell her.

"Did you get to finish high school?" Jane asks.

"Nope." There's some definite anger, and even stronger shame in it.

"You had to have had some kind of equivalency in order to join the Marines."

"I got my G.E.D., dropped out, and worked after my mom died. I wasn't really going to school before that, either. The G.E.D. just made it official, and made it easier to go from working part-time to full time."

He starts asking her about her life, asks her about her parents's divorce; he probably wonders what it would've been like for his family if his parents could have had a nice clean mutual separation. She tells him with no real sense of reservation about how her parents stopped sleeping in the same room by the time she was eight, how the sense of despair, the sterile, unhappy environment surrounding two people who were in the brink of making the transition between their autumn and their golden years made her wonder when they finally sat her down and told her the news why they'd waited so long to escape from each other. She'd been twelve years old when it happened, and she was surprised only that her parents were surprised at how well and quickly she accepted the news, as if their relationship hadn't deteriorated in front of her eyes.

"It's weird," she tells him, "how parents will think that just because you've fallen asleep that you'll stay asleep no matter how much noise they make. When they fought at night…" she shakes her head. "I don't know. I guess it was almost better than when they didn't speak to each other at all." She doesn't tell him that she would've done anything for a sibling, even a very annoying or a demanding one. Someone else in the house; a person she could spend time with who could be like more than just cranky, jaded, bitter shells of people. She tells him about all the dust that gathered in the house and the perpetual cobwebs in every corner when her mother left; the kind of squalor that would sometimes alarm her, even while she was in her own personal hell, to clean up the filth that would make anyone wonder how they could live this way. She hesitates to mention her father turning into something resembling a male Miss Havisham, going between yelling at her for every aspect of her failure as a daughter and then coming back with apologies, vehement assurances that she was "a great kid" and explanations for himself, most of them dealing with how lost he felt now that her mother was gone.

"Was he drunk when he did that?"

"Almost never. That's the truly scary part."

She didn't tell her mother about how Dad claimed to miss her, and certainly not about how he kept photos of the two of them from when they were married around the house.

"He hadn't loved her in years. I don't think he missed her so much as he felt rejected. And he probably missed having a 'little woman' around the house." It's a much different dynamic from with which Tommy grew up, and she can't help but feel that her childhood was an emotional paradise compared to his, and can't help but wonder just how much Tommy thinks that she's whining needlessly.

Three hours in they refuel at a gas station that has one of the most disgusting restrooms she has ever seen. When she comes back out to the fueling station she sees a man talking excitedly to Tommy, looks like he's damn close to wetting his pants. Tommy, for his part, is quiet and polite; every bit as stoic and enigmatic as he was in his short-lived MMA career, leaving the man no less enchanted when he walks away.

"A fan?" Jane asks as she comes up to the car.

"Yeah." He goes to the place to pay and gets back in the driver's seat.

"You want me to take the wheel for a while?" she offers.

"No, I'm good." It probably gives him a stronger sense of control, something—however unsatisfying—to do with his body.

The stretches of silence grow now that they're past the halfway point, getting ever closer. His knuckles once again go white on the steering wheel. The muscles in his jaw and shoulders are locked.

"Tommy…" she says after a moment.

He takes a deep breath turns to look at her.

"You're not going to be alone."

After a few minutes, he asks, "What was it like for you; facing your family when you were first getting sober?"

She thinks about it. "Awkward," she tells him. He laughs a little. "They didn't know how to act or talk around me. Someone would mention getting some decent wine for a family dinner and then everyone would look over at me like they thought I was going to burst into flames or something."

He nods to himself. "Uh, there are directions on the floor by your feet. When we get off the freeway I'll need your help. Getting there."

As they get closer and closer, they see nice suburban neighborhoods and neatly trimmed front lawns, still vibrant green in early February. And as they reach the address and Tommy pulls into park, his hands are starting to shake. He grips the steering wheel as if he's holding on for dear life.

Jane feels as though she's approaching a rhino as it's getting ready to charge; she's afraid of how he might snap. Regardless, she unbuckles her seatbelt and slowly, cautiously, reaches out and touches his arm.

He tenses up at the contact and then looks over at her, those grey eyes of his looking a little crazed; face more vulnerable than she's seen before. She leans in further, and as Tommy unbuckles his own seatbelt he finally lets his forehead touch hers; they share a breath.

"You can do this," she murmurs. "I'll be right there with you."

He closes his eyes and nods; he lets her stroke the side of his face, grazing the skin with her fingertips. For all that's happened, this fear and this vulnerability on his part diminishes her resentment and her misgivings, at least for now. Right now this is about him. It's about helping him through something she knows is beyond frightening for him. When they pull apart Tommy reaches behind him and grabs a wrapped gift from the backseat, gets out, and as she opens her side of the door, takes her by the hand as she gets out. And it's not as much courtesy as it is a need for reassurance, something he can hold onto as they head up the walk and onto the front porch. The grip his hand has on hers is borderline painful, and as he knocks she squeezes back.

The man who opens the door has a benign presence and so easily plays the part of civilian that it's almost hard to believe that the only other time she saw him he was fighting in a cage.

Brendan is taller and slimmer than Tommy, and has a handsome, slightly weathered face for someone still quite young and deep-set, sapphire blue eyes that take them both in. He has Patrick's eyes. His face opens in a tentative but genuine smile. "I'm glad you could make it," he tells them and ushers them inside. He gives Jane a curious look, as if inspecting her or trying to determine from one look what makes her special to his little brother. She can't help him with that; she's damned if she knows. It lasts only a moment, though, before Brendan shakes her free hand. "Pleased to meet you," he tells her. "I'm Brendan."

And in a gesture she hopes will let him know that Tommy did not try and convince her to despise him, she smiles and says, "Pleased to meet you as well. I'm Jane."

"Um…" Tommy clears his throat and mumbles something to Brendan in an undertone as he gives him the present. Brendan nods and gives a small smile, placing it amongst a small mound of other presents on the coffee table as he leads them into the living room.

They have to smile and shake hands then with Brendan's wife Tess, a beautiful blonde woman who gives Jane a more openly curious and somehow friendly look-over hidden behind a smile. And then they do so again with a man named Frank who introduces himself as the man who trained Brendan for SPARTA. While meeting Brendan and Tess is slightly awkward, meeting Frank is more so; after all, they're meeting one of the people who could've ended the match when it should've ended, a man who reminds Tommy of what happened. This is why he wanted to bring her. In case moments like this popped up. After the two shake hands with some hostility on both sides, Jane finds herself touching Tommy's arm, pulling him back when the other adults try to busy themselves in the kitchen, setting out silverware.

He turns to her, eyes narrowed. "Of all the fucking people to invite, why'd he pick his trainer?" he says to her in an undertone.

"I don't know. Maybe they're friends outside of training."

He starts to shut down again; his face a mask and a menacing one at that. He glances at the kitchen, jaw and lips tight, eyes burning a hole into the space his brother previously occupied.

"Hey," she finds herself saying, softly and with infinite caution. She touches his arm once more. He can't quite look back. She takes his hand. "Hey," she repeats, even quieter. "Look at me," she says. He finally does. She doesn't know how much it could help. She recently triggered a lot of his rage towards her, not all of which has subsided. But it seems better for him than focusing on cursing Brendan for his choice in guests.

Tess comes in, looking surprisingly composed for someone who's probably not the least bit happy to see one of the men who put a savage beating on her husband. "Dinner's almost ready. What would you guys like to drink?"

"Water would be great, thanks," Jane tells her.

"Same, thanks."

She nods, seeming almost too enthusiastic to go about it. As she ducks back into the kitchen she hears Brendan say, "Should I get the girls?"

"May as well," Tess says, sounding both resentful and defeated.

Brendan comes out. "Uh, Tommy, Emily and Rosie are in their room playing. Would you like to meet them now?"

Tommy looks like a deer caught in the headlights. His gaze shifts, wide-eyed, from him to her and back. "Uh, sure."

Brendan gives a half-grateful, half-apologetic smile and goes to his daughters's room. Less than a minute later two young girls come running out, one brown-haired and the other with a headful of thick blonde ringlets, both blue-eyed and fair. The older one, the brunette, looks to be around seven, whilst the fairer-haired girl is probably no older than three. Brendan takes them each by the hand. They both stop as they take a look at a big man in a threadbare jacket with cold grey eyes encircled by dark shadows. They both look a little subdued by the sight. The younger one seems to have less fear and more wonder. The older one, however, has stronger reservation.

"Emily, Rosie, this is my little brother, Tommy. He's your uncle."

"He's not little," the younger one, Rosie, protests; looking up at him and squirming with excitement at the aspect of meeting new people.

"My younger brother," Brendan corrects himself, looking straight ahead at said brother.

That's all Rosie seems to need. She lets out the most mischievous-sounding giggle Jane has ever heard and comes up to Tommy, looking absolutely delighted as the big man kneels down to reach her level. She pats his jacket into place and starts talking to him in a chirpy mile-a-minute pace, and it's unclear how much of it Tommy can actually understand. After a few moments, she notices Jane and says, "Daddy, who's the pretty lady?"

It's Tommy who answers. "That's Jane," he tells her in a quieter voice than usual, making his voice go a little higher as if to make himself sound less intimidating. "She's a very good friend of mine. I asked your Dad if she could come along."

Rosie starts tottering towards her. Not sure what else to do, Jane also sinks down to the floor as the tiny young girl beams and starts touching her face; pudgy little hands tracing her cheeks and she can't help but laugh. "It's nice to meet you, Rosie," she says.

Emily still hangs back, and, though not seeing Jane as any kind of threat regards Tommy wearily. Her father leans down and whispers something to her. She turns to him, and, after a moment, comes forward, raises a small hand to shake Tommy's, and at that moment looks like a miniature adult. Jane wonders if Emily has at least an idea of what went on between her father and her uncle in the past.

"I'm Emily," she tells him.

"Well it's nice to meet you, Emily." And once again, the somewhat easier gentleness surprises both of the other adults in the room. This looks like one part of the event in which Tommy won't have to struggle to keep his temper in check.

Emily does the same with Jane, at least before Rosie reclaims the focus as she tells her about her favorite Disney princesses.

"Daddy was a princess for my birthday," she says.

"He was?" Jane says, glancing over at Tommy who turns to Brendan with the closest thing to a smile she's seen all day. Brendan, in turn, nods to confirm this, with an embarrassed-looking smile on his face.

Emily seems relieved to have something else to talk about. "Yeah. We painted his face and everything."

"Dinner's ready," Tess says from behind them. They both start and see her leaning against the wall, watching them with her head tilted to one side. She looks oh-so-slightly more relaxed; her features softer. "Come on in."


	17. Brothers Part Two

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

AP stands for Advanced Placement; they are college level courses taught in some high schools. In this chapter there will be some switching between perspectives without prior warning, mostly from Brendan to Jane and back.

**Chapter Two: Brothers (Part Two)**

The young woman Tommy brought is not the kind of girl he'd been expecting; granted, he never really knew what type of girl his brother preferred. All the same, he and Tess are grateful that he thought to bring someone outside their fucked-up little family. It gives them something less excruciating to talk about.

"So, how'd you guys meet?" Frank says, tapping his fork against his plate.

From the way Tommy and Jane look at each other and glance nervously at the two girls playing with their food, Brendan suspects the worst and thinks to say, 'If you don't want to say, that's fine.' Before he can, however, Jane looks over at Rosie, and back at Frank, as if to inform him that she'll be telling him in a way that is safe for children.

"Well, um, you know how in fairy tales there's sometimes a princess who is in danger?" Rosie and Emily both look up, because she's suddenly speaking their language. "And how a knight will appear just in the nick of time and save the princess?" She looks over at Tommy, who looks as though he's trying very hard not to interrupt her and say something like, "We met at a coffee shop." Frank and Tess both, however, look like they're caught between understanding, respect, and complete amusement.

"Uncle Tommy's a knight?" Emily says.

"No, just a very brave man who saved my life," she says. Brendan makes eye contact with Tommy, who looks back at him as if to say, '_I'll tell you about it later_.' Jane gives him a deeply apologetic look that slowly turns into a small smile, and from the way he sighs and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear, he forgives her. While the knight analogy is a bit ridiculous, it somehow fits him. Before he'd left, everyone had pictured a future for him in Olympic wrestling. But he'd become a soldier, which somehow suits him more. He's not just a fighter; he's somehow, oddly and inherently protective. And he does nothing halfway, leaves nothing partly done.

And since his daughters love him so much, Emily says, "We have the video of Daddy as a princess."

"Oh yeah?" Tommy looks at him and thinks, clear as day; _Now it's your turn to be embarrassed. At least I was just a knight. You're a princess_.

Frank looks just as eager to poke fun at him. "Do you think we can watch it?"

"Yeah!" the girls pogo up and down in their seats. He looks over at Tess, smiling in spite of himself, and she's grinning back. He tries and fails to keep a straight face, as embarrassed as he is, and says, "After dinner." And, like a good sport, he steers the conversation away from him and back to his brother.

"So I heard you got a job?"

"Oh. Yeah. It's at a place called Colt's Gym. It's nothing big; just something to do to earn a living."

Frank leans forward. "Colt? As in 'Colt Boyd?'" he says, looking eager.

Tommy looks over at him. "Yeah," he says, sounding weary, wondering where Frank's going with it and not liking what he guesses.

Tess looks over at Jane and, knowing his wife, Brendan figures Tess knows Frank will forgive her for interrupting just this once, in order to avoid something unpleasant. "So Jane, what do you do?" she asks.

"Well, I'm a waitress at a diner near downtown Pittsburgh, and outside of that I'm a part-time student." She says it with little sense of apology, and, from what he can hear, not a trace of a Pittsburgh accent.

"Not to pry, but you're not from Pittsburgh, are you?" he says.

She smiles. "Don't worry; I get that a lot. And no, I'm from Washington D.C."

"What brought you to Pittsburgh, then? U Pitt or what?" Frank asks, leaning forward.

And Brendan notices two things: he notices Tommy scowl, eyes burning a hole through Frank and Jane laying her hand over Tommy's, twining her fingers with his as she says, "Well, I don't attend Pitt. I'm actually in community college right now. And I came to Pittsburgh to get a fresh start."

And it's clear that not only he but Tess and Frank want to ask, '_A fresh start from what?_'; after all, Pittsburgh is not the place on usually goes for a 'fresh start', like New York City or Southern California, but they don't. He respects the girl's candor and notices how much effort she puts into keeping Tommy from losing his temper, keeping his head clear, and he's grateful for that. It's clear she has a good idea of what kind of animosity's gone on between him and his brother; she wouldn't be trying to play mediator if she didn't; he and Tess share a look partway through the meal and through that one look find they're thinking the same thing: '_Thank God Tommy's found a girl who can put up with him and his anger, and can sense it while it can still be extinguished'_.

He tells them about how he's back in his preferred career as a physics teacher; the school is thinking of incorporating AP courses into the curriculum but until that happens, his classes will include the occasional bright, eager student amidst those who will scrape by simply to get the credit and spend most of the class goofing off or texting. He likes both groups of students all the same. It would be impossible to teach if he couldn't like—or even handle the kids who fall farther behind.

As Brendan talks about the pure element of fun in teaching physics even to those weary to learn, Jane decides not to mention that despite having taken and miraculously/barely passed physics in high school, most of what she knows about the science is what she's seen from the occasional episode of _The Big Bang Theory_. What she finds is that when all else fails, at least in terms of conversation, everyone else thinks that turning to the new person and asking about her personal life is the easiest thing to do_. What part of D.C. are you from? How long have you been living in Pittsburgh? How long have you and Tommy known each other?_ She tries her best to answer the questions as truthfully as she can while leaving out as much detail as possible. She feels Tommy sitting tense next to her, offering the minimum allowed number of words when asked how he's healing, and she get how excruciating this is. She's sat through holiday meals with both sides of the family treating her like a ticking time bomb, wondering when she was going to relapse, escape, and terrorize the village. The way people take extra care to use as many euphemisms for "rehab" as possible. Only now everyone's replacing it with "physical therapy treatment", and instead of a barely-out-of-her-teens young woman, it's a thirty-year-old man they're treating like this; being overtly polite more for his sake than for that of the children, who by now probably couldn't care less what the grown-ups are saying because it's so _boring_. It's not the first time she's missed sitting at the children's table during family events, and she's not the only one who feels this way.

Several times he reaches for her hand. A little over halfway through when she excuses herself for the bathroom, he's waiting for her in the hallway.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," he mutters to her.

She thinks. "It's a long drive home," she says. "That saves you a few hours."

"Yeah." He sighs and starts walking back with her. "Thanks for this."

At one point, though, when asked if there's anything she likes better in Pittsburgh than in D.C., she mentions the zoo. And Brendan says, "Hey, Tommy, remember when I was eight and you were six and we were looking at the polar bears, and one swam right up to us and just stared at us for about thirty seconds; didn't do anything, just stared with its nose pressed against the glass?" and one of those rare and thus impossibly beautiful smiles breaks Tommy's exterior and for a moment provides relief to everyone in the room.

"Yeah, I remember. That thing was…"

"_Huge_. Or maybe it seemed that way because we were so young." He looks at Emily. "We were around your age once, believe it or not."

For a moment a connection is formed, and this trip is not as hellish or hopeless as Tommy had thought. And a moment is all it takes for them to realize that a civilized conversation between the two of them is possible. When dinner is over and the serving plates are cleared away, Brendan braces for the moment someone brings up the video. To his horror, it's Tess who does the honors and leads everyone into the living room, popping the VCR into the player.

It's possibly summer, from the way the light hits the camera and the color pink is splashed around everywhere, from the garments to the gift-wrapping. There are a few playmates here and there, but that's all moot: Frank is the first to start laughing when the handheld camera pans in on the seated figure on the patio wearing what appears to be a ridiculously large bonnet, with his two daughters painting pink and yellow circles on his face, like an odd blush.

"What's going on over here!" comes Tess's voice, sounding both cheerful and close to good-natured laughter.

As the girls continue painting his face with utmost concentration, Brendan says, "Well, it seems that Daddy is now a princess." He seems to be on the verge of laughing as well. Jane glances over at Tommy, who seems to be fighting a grin, and she wonders if he's thinking about the unbelievable difference in personality, and whether it's something innate or the product of two different outcomes. That maybe if he and his mother had stayed that he'd be someone's husband and father, laughing freely, undeterred by the skeletons in his closet.

But not letting anyone put pink paint on his face. God forbid.

She giggles at the thought, and Tommy, it seems, finally lets himself laugh. Something genuine, not ironic or humorless. And at once she's more interested in this than the video.

When it's over, Frank claps Brendan on the back. "Well, I gotta say, Princess Fiona's got nothin' on you."

Brendan turns to him. "You mean before or after she's stuck as an ogre?"

"Hey; let's let you be the judge of that, eh?" And this starts another roll of laughter.

"Mommy? When can we have dessert?" Emily's probably been waiting with ironclad self-control throughout the video to ask; she did, after all, see the cake with the frosting roses. Enough to send a kid into a hyperglycemic fit, one of those frosting roses.

"In a little bit, sweetie." She looks over at her husband. "Are the two of you going to need the kitchen for a while?" she says in as soft a voice as she can manage.

Brendan looks over at his brother, who meets his eyes. He gently picks Rosie up off of his lap, sets her beside him, gets up and walks over to him. "Do you want a few minutes just to talk or something?" he asks.

Tommy hesitates, looks away from him for a second before tightening his jaw and forcing a curt nod.

Brendan turns back to Emily. "Tell you what," he says, "Let's wait a few minutes and when everyone's ready we can have dessert while we unwrap presents. Does that sound good?"

"Okay," Emily says, trying to exaggerate the toll the wait will have on her as she takes Rosie by the hand and leads her back to their toys.

**F**

As the other three adults stay in the living room and the girls retreat to their room to dress up Barbie until dessert's served, Brendan and Tommy head back to the kitchen and have another face-to-face discussion; one that hopefully will end differently.

"She's a nice girl," Brendan says, nodding towards the door, where in the living room he imagines Tess, Frank and Jane are having a slightly more candid discussion, and probably asking the same thing Brendan does now. "So the knight thing…"

"She was walking home from work and a skinhead with a gun was dragging her into an alleyway while I was coming out of the gym across the street." His words are blunt and he seems to try not to fidget as he slumps back in his chair. He drums his fingertips against the table.

"So whatever you fucked up, she must've forgiven you for it."

"That's what I'm hoping."

Brendan hesitates. He almost wants to bring Tommy's date back in to make sure there's a mediator here. "Listen, that talk on the beach four months ago...I was lying when I said I forgave Pop."

Tommy nods and looks down. "I know."

"I didn't really get it until I had kids of my own just how much he fucked us up. The drinking and the physical abuse were bad enough, but even the smaller things; the playing favorites. That's gotta be one of the cruelest things a parent can do to his child, treating him like less of a person than the other. With my girls, I'd _never_ be able to do something like that. Wouldn't want to."

Tommy suddenly sits up straight. "You think I wanted that?" he says. "You think I wanted him to do that?"

Brendan sighs, runs a hand through his hair.

"You really think I did, don't you?"

"I just know he preferred you. And when you left he still didn't want anything to do with me."

"He was an idiot." He leans forward and tells Brendan with utmost conviction, "I looked up to you. I thought you were the better one. I wouldn't have spent years of my life staying mad at you if I hadn't felt cheated when you stayed behind."

Brendan's not sure how to react to that.

"Were you also lying when you said you forgave me and Mom?" Tommy asks him, pointedly looking away for a moment.

"The time I said it, kind of. Now, no."

Tommy sighs and sits back. "I wasn't sure how I'd be able to tell you she was dying without Pop finding out." After a moment, he adds, "And I didn't think you had the right to say goodbye to her when you hadn't…when you chose to stay behind. You didn't have to see her like I did, or take care of her when she couldn't even walk. I felt like you gave up that right when you said you wouldn't come with us."

Brendan nods. He's heard enough to know what he can say. Tommy seems calm enough that he can say this with a clear conscience. "I'm sorry for all the pain I caused you. And I'm sorry for what you had to go through. But if I was given that choice again, I'd still choose Tess."

"Yeah. I know that, too."

Tommy looks over at the door. The silence that follows is unnerving; makes Brendan wonder what he's supposed to be looking at. "She's been through a lot."

"Who? Jane?"

He nods. "She hasn't been through some of the things I have, and I'll never have to go through some of the shit she did." He looks back at his brother for a second. "I remember you saying that I wasn't the only one who's suffered. I'm still pissed at you. Sometimes, anyway. But you didn't stay with the old man because he was good to you. You stayed because there was someone else worth staying for."

**E**

He honestly doesn't really remember what goes on when dessert's passed out and presents are exchanged. Rosie alternates between climbing into Tess's lap and then Brendan's, and Emily sits between them, loudly giving her opinion on every present as it's unwrapped, on a sugar high after insisting she get one of the pieces with the most frosting.

It's a kind of domestic setting he's not used to. It's way too stable and sober to be anywhere close to the birthdays from his childhood. It's much closer to the times Manny invited him along home with him during leave and treated him like family—in the normal sense of the word. The difference is that while he's related to the man unwrapping presents, he couldn't feel farther apart. Times like these he feels a buzzing under his skin, a throbbing behind his eyes, and hears noise instead of conversations. Not for the first time today, he wants out. He's not one of those fun uncles, he's not good at parties of any kind, he doesn't even fuckin' like cake, so what is he doing here?

Why'd Brendan want him over for this? It's not like he's livening things up. If anything, he's what's keeping people from enjoying themselves. It's 5:30 and all he really has to look forward to is a five-hour drive home. And he doesn't even…

At six he figures he'd put in enough time that he can say he has to leave without breaking any rules. The five-hour drive actually works in his favor this time. Brendan understands. Tess looks relieved.

_Don't worry. I wasn't going to break any of your china, _he thinks. "So, happy birthday," he says.

"Thanks. It was great having you over," Brendan says and sounds like he actually means it.

And when it's all over and he's out of that house, Jane touches his shoulder.

"Hey," she murmurs, "You did it."


	18. Three Months

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

**Chapter Sixteen: Three Months**

On the drive back, Jane says, "The kids were sweet."

"Yeah."

She looks over at him, almost smiles at the way a few hours earlier he'd eased his way into his new role as 'uncle.' "You were really good with them," she tells him.

He looks ahead. "You sound surprised," he tells her.

"I _am_ surprised."

He's not the kind of guy who seems like he'd have the patience or gentleness to be able to work with kids, none of the sense of fun, either, and he knows it. He kind of shrugs. "My best friend back in the Corps got married and had kids early on, and they all became kind of like a surrogate family to me. Kids aren't bad." He keeps focusing on the road. "They're at a fun age," he adds. "Both of them."

"And then they get to be teenagers and suddenly they're a pain in the ass."

And once again, he's focused on the road, perhaps more than necessary. She's guessing that maybe he hit a brick wall of sorts; that he's upheld a social façade long enough and now he just wants to retire it, kind of like she does after most of her waitressing shifts. And while it's understandable the silence is still uncomfortable.

After a moment she tries again: "Did you know Tess back in the day?"

Tommy shrugs. "Kind of. I never really talked to her. She was the first girl he brought over to the house, the first girl he trusted to see that part of him."

Jane hesitates. She's not sure if this is a button too hot to push, if this is something she should avoid mentioning in case it causes him to freak out. "Did you have a high school sweetheart?"

Tommy shakes his head, scoffs at the idea. "Nah. Freshman year, up until Mom and I left, I was too focused on wrestling to go out with anyone. After that…" he looks over at her and turns her attention back at the road. "After that it was all I could do to try and keep my mother alive."

"And when you were sixteen?"

"You mean after she died." Jane says nothing. "I worked. Got my GED, dropped out, and worked, just like I told you. There were a couple of girls between then and when I joined the Marines, but nothing serious. Nothing close to what Brendan had." And there's no real bitterness in it; not many people meet and start dating the people who will one day be their wives or husbands, the people with whom they start families, when they're still in high school. He's starting to shut down on her. But this isn't about her.

Tommy just spent a few violence-and mostly rage-free hours with his estranged brother. That's the important thing here. "Do you think the two of you will be able to stand talking more often? I mean…all things considered, you looked like you were getting along okay."

"I don't know."

**F**

Eventually Jane falls asleep in the seat next to him. In order to avoid doing the same, he gets a coffee from the convenience store next to the gas station just off the freeway where he refuels. When he comes back he takes a moment just to look at her, thinking of the small bits and pieces of information she's given him, the things she's done, the things she's seen and lived through, and it's easy to forget how young she is. Right now, head tilted against the back of her seat, the moon highlighting her profile and the almost-black hair falling against her forehead, he thinks she's beautiful. He also thinks she saw him emasculated, saw him scared and it bothers the shit out of him.

And when he reaches her apartment and gently shakes her awake, he doesn't want her to bring any of it up. She seems a bit tired for it anyway. Instead what she does is smile sleepily at him and start to lean in, but he must not look friendly at the moment because she pulls back, eyes slightly wider, and hesitates. She says, "Good night," and gets out of the car, stretching out her legs as she heads to her apartment.

**E**

A week goes by, and then two. She wonders at first if he had no interest in seeing her again beyond using her as a safety net when he saw his brother, next if the absence is out of resentment; he asked her for help and she saw him vulnerable and he simply cannot have that. _Tommy Riordan don't ask for nobody's help_. The thought annoys her, and while a part of her figures she ought to take the initiative and call him out on it, the rest of her life, a minimum of five meetings a week, four college classes and now nearly fifty hours a week at the diner, is catching up with her, and he's fading farther away. Two weeks grows into one month as schoolwork piles up and she fights to maintain a 4.0. When a waitress quits without giving a two-week notice, she picks up a weekend shift that occupies her Saturdays from two to eleven. She doesn't have the time on those days to get depressed about it, about how she used to look forward to those days.

Most importantly, though, she talks to Dionne, and they agree that she needs to work the fourth step again, ("_we made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves_") address her former sex life and all the fear that stems from it. She goes back to the rage that terrified her when she was first getting sober and couldn't drink it down; the kind of chaotic fury that made her realize, at that time, that she was indeed capable of torture and murder, when she remembered the Future Frat Brothers of America comparing their latest conquests.

"_Yeah. Nothing special, though. Just fucked Jane at Peter's house party on Saturday."_

_And she'd have not clear memories of these things, nothing smooth or concise, but sensations, sounds, smells. She'd remember the itchy fabric of the couch scraping against whatever skin was bared. She'd remember the pressure of sweaty hands pinning her wrists down, the sound of labored breathing close above her, the smell of stale beer on hot breath on her face, feeling, no matter how much she wished she didn't, the clumsy and sometimes violent roughness of a slightly drunk and entirely uncaring boy pushing into her, making her joints feel as though they may break apart like wax. Indeed that boy had fucked her, but, like he'd said, it was nothing special. A depressed girl with an agonizingly low self-esteem was easy to fuck if you got her wasted enough that even if she wanted to turn you down, she wouldn't be able to. Easy as fucking a blow-up doll or a hole in the wall._

_And she'd be dehumanized, humiliated, and furious until the next time she'd get drunk at a party and find the whole fucking thing happen again. The same pain, the same shame and humiliation not just at the stigma the whole thing gave her, but at the fact that she was letting it happen. No matter how much she hated it, she was powerless over it._

"I was never going to be able to get into a physical relationship without doing this, was I?" she asks Dionne at one point.

Dionne considers this. "Probably not. There's a kind of trauma that still has a hold on you. Even if you wanted to take things further with him, chances are you would've panicked before things could start."

"If you want to say, 'I told you so' I won't mind."

"I don't."

Somewhere between the first and second month, between revisiting the worst parts of her interactions with the opposite sex and learning to let go, when she and Carlos are both quitting out for the evening and he asks, "What happened with the guy you were dating?"

She finds the implications stop her several times before she's able to answer. "We're taking a break," is the best she can come up with. She'd like to think that she sounds nonchalant, unemotional, just fine with it.

"You guys have a length of time in mind or did you just decide to wing it and see what happens?"

It's a fairly innocent question, nothing loaded with a silent test to see if it will hurt her, but damn it, it does. Not terribly so, but enough to let her know that while she's in this silent battle of wills or whatever the hell this is and not quite ready for a full-fledged relationship, she isn't ready to call it quits, either. "We didn't really talk about it."

The look Carlos gives her is one she has never seen on him before. And while she'd like to push away the hug he gives her, her barrier falls and she finds herself fiercely hugging him back, wanting to hold on to something.

One month becomes two, and it's starting to hurt less when she has the time to think about him. She and several other waitresses still juggle extra shifts, and the manager's…refined tastes…don't help.

One afternoon a girl with waitressing experience but is without a doubt several sizes above the unofficial 10 limit comes in and asks if they're hiring. Jane glances behind her and her manager, safe from scrutiny behind his office, takes one look at the girl and vehemently shakes his head. Holding back a scowl, she turns to the girl and says, "I'm sorry, but we're not hiring at the moment" and feels a small part of her soul disappear. She really fucking hates her job.

As the second month trails on, a distraction in the form of a lanky U-Pitt lacrosse player passes through. Since the Oldies Diner is a downtown attraction with decent-looking, younger waitresses and a variety of thick, hearty, carnivore-lover's food, it's a frequent stop among college boys. Specifically college jocks. Every waitress gets at least a few in her section, and though the teams change with the seasons, the personalities are often identical. After a _wonderful _Saturday shift of baby-sitting a group of these boys who loudly compliment the appearance of her ass in her uniform and leave her with a combined ten percent tip, the quietest one, the one who refrained from calling her "sweet tits" and left the largest portion of the tip, doubles back after the others head out and catches her before she heads to the kitchen, head down and voice discreet. She thinks his name is Rob. He bears an uncanny physical resemblance Ethan Hawke's character in _Dead Poet's Society, _so very youthful though he couldn't be younger than she, and he's not that much more outgoing as he asks her if she's free the next day.

For the life of her she doesn't know how to respond. He's a genuinely nice, physically attractive person whose interest is actually quite flattering. She hasn't heard from Tommy in nearly three months, and hasn't had the guts to call _him_. For all she knows, he's moved on. Probably found a nice girl with long blonde hair, a tan to suit the spring, and a flawless bikini bod.

The thought pisses her off more than she can stand to admit, and could very well be the reason she tells him yes.

**A**

Tommy doesn't call. He supposes that she could stand to man up and call _him_, and kind of expects her to as the second week passes by, slower than it has before. It occurs to him that in the past, he's always been the one to call, but this isn't the 1950s and Jane's not spineless. She'll call if she wants to, even if it's to say something like, "I was just checking to see if the number was still working" but she doesn't. Maybe the tests were the last straw. She did this one favor and that's it. She's done.

He's not sure what it is about that night that makes him avoid her. And while he doesn't recall making the decision that she's seen too much too soon, that he needs some time alone, he does realize it's a great excuse. He's insured and has a bank account as Tommy Riordan, and as the time spent out of the limelight increases, the paranoia; the fear of someone discovering Thomas Conlon starts to fade.

The mediocre salary he bring in at the gym starts to add up; enough, in fact, that he's able to take his few belongings and move into a shitty studio apartment on a street pretty similar to the one Jane lives on. It's more or less in the same neighborhood. He tells himself repeatedly that that's not why he chose it. Paddy, for his part, doesn't say much about it, lets him know without ever having to say it that he'll keep Tommy's secret as long as he lives. He pulls a few favors with friends from AA meetings, one of whom has a one-ton truck, and ships a little furniture, a dresser, a few chairs, a full-size mattress, over to his apartment, no questions asked.

_Not all people in AA are as bad as me_ is the note he gives along with the furniture he claims he won't miss.

He balls up the paper. He knows.

But he has to be realistic. She's not ready for things to go farther. And even though he learned to go celibate for long stretches at a time when on active duty, stationed in Iraq, it seems so weird to him that he's celibate now, and has been since he was training for SPARTA, when in a civilian environment where there are tons of available women.

Two months in. A few times he goes to bars on the weekends like normal guys in their twenties and early thirties. And he realizes that he won't have to look hard for someone who's interested. Without trying, without giving the impression that he's at a bar to do anything except drink, he finds girls come up to him and offer more than just drinks and phone numbers. But there are two problems with this. The first is that most of them recognize him, fawn over him, call him a hero, and use pick-up lines that usually involve the words 'naked rear end' and 'tap me.' And while to most guys this wouldn't be a problem at all, he didn't like the attention when he was fighting and he likes it even less now.

The second problem, one that's too embarrassing to admit but too real to deny, at least not to himself, is that none of them are Jane.

He's pretty sure he makes history when he turns down sex from all-American good-looking women who treat him like a god because of his upper body strength. But it doesn't matter; when enough time passes, when another annual UFC tournament pops up and if another single MMA fighter comes through town, they'll forget all about him and that suits him fine. It occurs to him, like with the nameless girl at the bar the night he found out about Jane's former life as a drunk, that he doesn't need to care about any of them in order to find physical release, that he can pretend that their bodies actually belong to someone he's wanted to but never slept with. He doesn't, though. His brain tells him to go for it as long as he uses protection but his body pulls him away; isn't it supposed to be the opposite?

What he likes about this time is the continuing strength and improving range of motion; the fact that he can do push-ups without any pain, that he can lift something more substantial than weightless pulleys. The fact that the act of throwing a punch doesn't hurt when he passes six months healed.

And something else. Not long after he gets what isn't quite a cell phone but one of those disposable trac phones he picks up at a 7-11, Paddy drops by the gym one day and tells him that Brendan called and asked if there was a number other than work where he could reach his brother.

He gives his father the number, tells him that Brendan appreciated the books.

**R**

The date with Rob is absolutely fine. A movie—he seems relieved beyond words when she chooses an action film over the latest Katherine Heigl-or-Jennifer Aniston-or-Sandra Bullock romantic comedy, and she guesses he probably would've gone along with it if that had been her preference—followed by Pinkberry. His head is nowhere near as inflated as that of his friends, and she doesn't have some of the same fear as she did on her first-ever date. She doesn't expect him to pressure her into anything, and isn't afraid that if he does and she turns him down that there will be some huge argument. Working the fourth step again has helped some with that. She doesn't feel any spark of any kind with him, though. His quietness doesn't hold intrigue for her, a need to delve deeper, though she does get a few words out of him without trouble, and finds that he's twenty-two and a business major from Baltimore who got into U-Pitt on a partial athletic scholarship. Even she knows that while Pittsburgh is wrestling country, Baltimore is lacrosse country. He's a bit quiet, kind of shy, but really there's absolutely nothing wrong with him. He doesn't seem to look down on her for being a part-time community college student like other people her age have often done.

Nevertheless, she realizes she's not interested. No matter how much she wants to move forward, she realizes her body, at least, wants only one thing; one person, anyway. She's still interested in Tommy. In that aspect, she hasn't moved on, and this guy is too good for her to lead him to think otherwise.

So, at the end of the date, she tells him that she's recently been through a messy break-up and that she hasn't moved on, isn't ready for a new relationship. He looks slightly crestfallen, maybe a little annoyed, but somewhere she reads in his expression a kind of understanding and maybe relief that she didn't make him pay for her ticket with the now-broken promise of sex later on. That she didn't try and use him as a rebound.

She's still looking back. But at this point she doesn't know how to _reach _back.

**A**

When Tommy calls his brother up it's easier to manage a conversation on the phone than in person; they both know now that they can actually get through something like this without major collateral damage. He talks more than he has in months; tells Brendan about things slightly less personal than what's been bugging him most. He tells him that he's now living in an apartment on the outer edges of Larimer; that it's not much of a place but it's _his_. Tells him that he's thinking of getting another job. Preferably something that pays a little better.

"Doing what?"

"I don't know. That's the problem." He'd make even less money at the mills and it seems like every job requires at least an Associate's degree. He'd lose his mind in a sedentary job; even the work at the gym, where he's on his feet for a fair amount of the time, is too still for him.

He tells Brendan this, who says, "How about working in security?"

"What, you mean like at a bank, or at a nightclub?"

"Nah, not at a nightclub. It varies depending on the club, but bouncing usually doesn't pay much, and with the hours you wouldn't be able to live off it; it would only really work as a second job."

"And working as a security guard would?"

"Just a thought," Brendan says. "You could look into it, though. I mean, you're far enough healed that you'd be able to do something more selective than mall-cop work."

It's not until later, when Tommy's sure neither of them will bring it up, that Brendan mentions_ her_. "I didn't think she was your type," he admits.

He bristles. "How'd you know what my type is? You never saw me go out with anyone."

"Just a hunch. I'd thought you were more interested in classic, kind of All-American looking women. Or women who're more interested in sports."

"You mean women like Tess." There's an awkward stretch. "I don't have a 'type', Brendan. It was just something about her. Everything about her." He corrects himself, hoping that this will end the topic, "It doesn't matter; we haven't talked in three months."

But it doesn't. "How come?"

He doesn't say anything, just breaths into the receiver.

"That's a shame. She seemed good for you, even if she didn't seem like the obvious choice. Maybe because of it."

Once again, he's quiet, at least until Brendan drops the subject and moves onto another one. Even talking about Pop is easier than talking about Jane.

He gets it, he knows why, and he doesn't need Brendan to hint at it. After the conversation's done and he's once again alone in his crappy apartment with the mattress against the wall and the peeling paint that he finally lets himself think it.

He misses her.

The kind of 'off' sense of humor, the deep-down goodness, the interest that had nothing to do with him as a fighter or a soldier and everything to do with him as a person, the sound of her voice and the big, dark eyes and every other fucking thing. It's too late for a few words over the phone. What he does instead is leave work half an hour early on Friday and takes the bus to the diner. He makes it there fifteen minutes before her shift ends and makes his way to her section.

**N**

The new girl, Kelsey, says to Jane, "A guy just came into your section," as they pass each other in the kitchens.

"Well that's just fucking great," she replies. "I always love it when people come in a few minutes before my shift ends." She senses the figure towards the back as she heads out and first attends to a couple who are getting ready to leave, giving them their check before heading to the new asshole.

And she sees _him_.

The clichés are true, apparently. Her heart stops for a moment and when it resumes goes at thrice the normal rate. She's frozen to the spot, looking like a comical statue. It's only as she starts to come forward that she can breathe again or even realize that she'd stopped in the first place. She wipes shaking, sweating hands on her apron, all too aware of the pulse in her ears, the tingling in her breasts and lower body as she reaches his booth. Her mouth is dry, and it takes a couple of tries to speak coherently.

"Hello, Tommy."


	19. Reunion

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

Was thinking of calling this "A Warning of Things to Come" before realizing how easily it could be interpreted as a pun (not my intention!) and would like to ask a general question: given that this is an M-rated romance, how averse would you, as a reader, be to strong sexual content in this story?

Second: I know Tommy told Brendan that he doesn't drink coffee. Given that he drinks coffee at other times in the film, I'm guessing he was just giving an excuse to not want to talk to him, and probably does on occasion.

**Chapter Nineteen: Reunion**

He smiles, actually _smiles_, for a moment at her recognition.

"Hello, Jane," he tells her.

He doesn't look any worse than the last time she saw him. If anything, he looks even better. She's not quite as terrified of this attraction as she was before, which is fantastic because it's still there, and stronger than ever. She still thinks he's one of the most distinctively attractive men she's ever met. What makes it even better is his lack of arrogance about it. His lack of vanity.

"I…" she clears her throat, "You want to order something?"

"I thought your shift ended at eleven."

"It does."

"Then no, I'm good."

Her brain slowly starts turning its gears again. "Why're you here if you don't want to order anything?"

"To drop in. Walk you home, if you're still living where you were."

It's not a grand declaration of love, but for Tommy and his way with words, it's pretty close. Her heart's in her throat and the butterflies in her stomach are replaced with something much larger—birds, maybe?—as she stands her ground.

She plays it his way. "I am. And thanks." She somehow remembers her other customers and makes sure all the loose ends are tied when it reaches eleven and she changes, trading in the curve-accentuating dress for clothes she's owned since she was a weed-smoking, lethargic drunk that at one point were snug but now are baggy and frayed, and when she comes back he looks no less interested.

"How've you been?" is the first thing he asks her while they wait for the bus.

"Pretty busy," she says, trying to sound casual. "But at the very least I'm done with finals and registered for a couple of classes for the summer. And I, um," she glances at him, thinking that if he's ready for things to come back together—for _them_ to get back together-and go farther, then so is she, "I worked out some problems I've been avoiding for a long time."

"Like what?"

"Things that happened to me when I was in high school."

"The abuse." _The abuse that never took the form of a punch in the face_. He looks over at her and she thinks she sees compassion. She'd like to think so. One former victim to another. One person whose life went to shit at fourteen to another.

"Yeah." The bus comes and they get on, and she waits until they're seated before she can continue. "It's something I needed to address." _ I missed you._ "How about you?"

"I got a new place." For a moment she thinks it's all he's going to say. "You been seeing anyone?"

"No," she says, stressing the words as much as possible. She adds, mostly out of curiosity as to how Tommy will react, "I went on a date recently, but that's as far as it went."

He tenses up next to her. "What happened?" he asks; voice slightly rougher.

"It was with someone from U-Pitt; just a movie and a frozen yogurt. At the end of it I told him I wasn't ready for a relationship."

"And are you?"

She looks at him for a moment, the jealousy clear is day and somehow, much to her guilt, it cheers her up immensely. "Not with him," she says, and he gets it. For good measure she asks the same thing, "Have _you_ been seeing anyone?"

"_No_." And she trusts him in this aspect at least.

She says it, finally says it, because he's the one who broke and saw her. "I missed you," she tells him.

He nods, looking down, and it's much harder for him to say the words. It's almost inaudible when he mumbles, "Yeah, me, too."

She can't help it; she teases him a little, "Is that why you decided to 'drop in'?" she says, letting a smirk play however briefly across her face. He says nothing. The bus reaches her stop, and when they get off, his response comes to her in the form of his hand taking hers. And it's enough. It's more than enough.

After close to a minute, Tommy says, "I got a cell phone. Kind of, anyway."

"You mean like a trac phone?"

"Yeah." He gives her the number. She enters it into her phone, and until they're close to her apartment they're silent again. Her heart is beating rapidly and the tingling in her body has grown into an insistent throb. And at the time when normally they might say goodnight and part ways she thinks, _For once in your life take the goddamn initiative_. And so she does. As he stops to tell her goodnight she kisses him. And it's nothing quick or chaste or hesitant. She threads a hand through his hair to bring him in closer and almost immediately after her lips meet his he's more than willing to comply with her. She's vaguely aware of his hands pulling her hips closer to his but fully aware of his body heat and those impossibly full lips of his that, as they break apart for air, trail along her cheek, her jaw, her neck.

She brings her hands to either side of his face, slowly pulling him up to meet her eyes. What instead happens is their foreheads come close together; their noses touch; they're breathing the same air. "It's really good seeing you again," she tells him. Her voice is a little close to breathless.

He stops and starts. "Start again?" he says.

"Yes." She nods. "From wherever it was we left off. I won't take any more of your tests, though," she adds, tilting her head back and looking him in the eyes as she says it. "_Never again_."

He nods. "No more tests," he tells her. "That's a promise."

"I'll hold you to it," she assures him.

"When were you thinking of seeing each other again?"

"I'm free tomorrow afternoon." She knows she needs to address things with him that terrified her before, and so she tells him this. And they agree on a coffee shop that is large and dark enough that even at peak hours is never even a fraction as crowded as any Starbucks. He knows what she needs to address with him, and he'll wait until that time. Right now isn't the time to announce undying love and jump into bed. Now is the time to test the waters.

"Jane?" Tommy says as they say goodbye for the night, knowing they'll see each other again tomorrow.

"Yeah?"

He thins out his lips and hesitates before telling her. "That last fight, before I tapped out, he said he was sorry, and that he loved me. And after that," he looks down, he takes a breath, and she's seeing him vulnerable again. She doesn't know how humiliating or painful this is for him. But he finishes his statement in a steady enough voice for her to understand every word. "After that, after it was over, he said he always loved me, always would; that I would always be his brother."

She stares at him, speechless, but when he starts to turn away, she pulls him back, not sure why. All she knows is that when she does she can't let him leave like that. She touches the side of his neck, brings her hand up to the side of his face, and kisses him in a manner far gentler and far less invasive than the one earlier. If he would only let her hug him she would, but she's pretty sure that's out of the question at the moment. He wouldn't appreciate that gesture at all.

When she goes up to her apartment that night, she thinks Dionne was right. She_ is_ way too in love to think straight. Right now, though, from where she's standing, it doesn't seem like such a bad thing.

**F**

Saturday after a meeting she tells Dionne, "Tommy came by the diner last night."

Dionne's expression is unfathomable; as far as Jane can tell, it's a mixture of conflicting emotions, most of which are positive. "And I'm guessing he wasn't there for the Porterhouse special."

She shakes her head, unable to suppress a smile. "No. To, I think his words were 'drop in', and to walk me home."

"Is it back on between the two of you?"

She nods. "We agreed on that. We agreed that he wasn't to test me again. And I believe him when he promised it. At this point, and this far along, I think he's past the testing stage."

"You're probably right."

"We're meeting for coffee later today. And I think I ought to tell him…you know. Not go into graphic detail or anything, but I want to let him in on that, because I think, after going through the fourth step with you, I can actually let things get physical the way they couldn't before."

"Do you want things to get physical, or is it just to please him?"

"I want to," Jane tells her. "I wanted to before; remember?"

Dionne thinks about it before she chooses her words. "I think," she tells Jane, "That if the two of you want to get physical, you need to affirm it, actually agree on it. And yes, the two of you need to talk about both of your histories. He knows you were hurt; he'll probably want to know. You were raped on multiple occasions without protection in D.C., which has the highest rate of HIV infection in the country, not to mention every other STD out there."

"And I'm somehow miraculously clean. I don't even know how that's possible."

"Neither do I. But like I said, the two of you need to talk it out. It's not fun, it's awkward as hell, but in the long run it's pretty damn romantic. It's kind of like getting tested together; it's not the kind of romantic gesture you'll read about in love stories, but it's concrete evidence that you care about the other person's safety."

**E**

She waits until they get their orders and both are stunned and somehow pleased to find they take their coffee the same way: black and unsweetened.

"There are things you should know," Jane tells him. "Not just about the drinking. It's about the other stuff."

"You got an STD?" he asks. The tone isn't nearly as accusing as the question, and hell, it's only fair for him to ask.

"No. I got tested before rehab after I'd been celibate for about four months and came out clean, and I haven't been with anyone since. Also turned out I can't have children but that wasn't nearly as much of a surprise." She takes a breath that sounds somehow similar to a laugh. "I mean, my first time was when I was fourteen and unconscious. I don't even know who it was. I had to get tested. Because I thought for sure I must have had something." She's done some humiliating things, but admitting to the gynecologist back in D.C. that she didn't know the exact number of sexual partners she'd had is up there. She will never forget the look the woman gave her. She'd been used to disgust or contempt, but the underlying pity had made her feel all the more pathetic.

His voice becomes quieter. "You were unconscious?" he says.

She nods. "I thought it wasn't until college that I'd have to worry about guys slipping something into my drink, but I guess I was wrong."

She doesn't want him to pity her. She doesn't want him to see her as damaged beyond repair, as unfit for use.

He brings a hand over his mouth, slides it down, looks away and back. "How long did they get away with it?"

"Nearly five years," she tells him.

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" he asks.

She tries to phrase it as best as she can. "There are some addicts, usually male, who abuse others when they're drunk or high. Some kind of rage that would be unfamiliar to them when they're sober is activated and they hurt people who've done nothing to deserve it. You know those kinds of addicts. I belong to a different group. I belong to the kind who stayed drunk or high so I could put up with it, and keep down that kind of rage.

"I'm much more likely to punch someone in the face while sober," she tells him, a faint grin tugging at the corner of her mouth, "because I wouldn't be able to drink it down; I'd actually have to feel and acknowledge that rage. That and my coordination for it would be much better."

There's a soft hint of a laugh at that. He looks at her like he doesn't know what to tell her, like he wants to say things that by now would be pointless. "You know rage," is what he says instead.

She nods. "Yeah. I know rage," she affirms. And then she admits, "I should've told someone."

He hesitates. "Why're you opening up to me about this?"

And Dionne's right: this is awkward as hell. At first Jane says, "I thought it was obvious.

"If things…between us…go farther, I think you have a right to know my history."

And Tommy's eyes widen a little. "Do you want them to?" he asks_. Is that why you worked out that fear? For this?_

Jane bites the bullet. Looks him dead in the eye when she tells him, "Yes. Very much."

And for a moment he's rendered speechless. He taps his knuckles against the table. "So do I," he says finally. "I just…you're the one who's gotten hurt that way. So it's up to you." And he mans up and shares his information.

"I, um, I've always used protection. The first girl I was with had an STD, and she told me, 'If you go in without a condom you're not only trusting with person you're with but everyone she's been with, everyone those people have been with, and somewhere down the line chances are at least one of them is lying.' And they won't let you in the Corps if you got anything like that. They test you for it. And when they test you for steroids during sports events, you have the option of being tested for STD's, and that came out clean."

"And since then?"

He looks over at her and back down. "I haven't been with anyone since then." It comes out as an embarrassed mumble, but she hears it loud and clear.

She does her best to take the awkwardness out of it. "So we're both clean," she says. He nods, still looking down, and takes a sip of coffee.

**A**

On Tuesday Tommy calls her up with an idea that's sure to make her crack up and wonder about his sanity.

"How about we give Girasole another try Saturday?" he says.

Jane laughs on the other end. He loves the sound; the rich mellowness of it. "With what happened last time we were there?" she says.

He smiles into the receiver. "We're starting over, right?" he says. "I want to try going out the right way this time."

"If they recognize us, I don't think they'll let us in."

"Do you want to give it a try anyway?"

He can hear the smile in her voice when she says, "Sounds like a plan. Let's try for seven."

After the call, he thinks about the talk they had Saturday. She says she's ready this time around. And he believes her.


	20. Healing

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

Just a warning: this chapter contains some strong sexual content. Given that this story holds an 'M' rating and has 'romance' listed as one of its main genres, I was glad to hear that no one would have any objection to strong sexuality, especially since I'd already written this chapter. This is the first chapter involving sex, but will not be the last.

**Chapter Twenty: Healing**

After a Wednesday morning step-meeting, Jane gets a lift back to her apartment with Dionne, and she says, "I think things with Tommy are going to go farther pretty soon." She looks over at her sponsor, who doesn't even flinch. "I want them to. We've sat down and talked about it; I now know his history and he knows mine, and I'm not terrified this time_. I want this_."

There's a silence that lasts until they reach a red light. "What are you asking from me, Jane? My permission and blessing? I'm not going to tell you no."

She winces a little. "I'm so going to regret this, but I was wondering if you could…you know…impart any words of wisdom?"

Dionne bursts out laughing as Jane turns multiple shades of red. "Please, Dionne, don't make this any harder than it already is."

"Okay, okay. You want a little advice?" she says as she makes a left. "You might get complaints from your downstairs neighbors, but sex isn't something that should be kept quiet and in the dark. You want to make it real, make sure you're ready? Follow these three rules: No clothes. No covers. And enough light that you can see each other clearly."

Jane doesn't tell her that it's mighty unpleasant to picture her sponsor having sex at all, let alone under those conditions, but does say, "I thought one of the rules would be about condoms or something."

"Everyone knows that rule."

**F**

'_Step four: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves_,' Jane thinks as she stands naked in front of the full-length mirror in her bathroom, taking a fearless and searching inventory of what she's decided is a lean, evenly proportioned, but not particularly impressive or interesting body.

She's lost somewhere around thirty pounds since the first time she was put into care nearly two years ago, as well as more than a full cup size, and while her curves are existent—she doubts she'd have her job if they weren't—they're not much; they're nothing memorable. At no other time would she particularly care, but she does now. She stands a very good chance of sleeping with someone who possesses a remarkable level of fitness tonight, and the little bit of definition_ she_ has comes from a busy schedule, youth, and a job that always keeps her moving. Then there's the face; it could be worse. Her teen years were unspeakably cruel to her skin, but save for a few scars along her cheekbones, her complexion has cleared up immensely to accommodate her freakishly pale skin and the perpetual shadows around her eyes. Dionne once referred to her appearance as "gamine." Her mother once called it, "artfully disheveled androgyny with a baby-doll face." She doesn't know what to call it, except that it's unsatisfactory at the moment.

But that won't do.

Light. No clothes. No covers. It requires full body acceptance.

"Eh, not too shabby," she says, leaving the bathroom to get dressed for the evening.

**E**

She meets him at Girasole, and he raises his eyebrows when he sees her, grins a little.

"Is that the same dress you wore last time we were here?" he asks.

She grins back, because indeed it is. She's also wearing the same boots, minus the stockings and minus the coat. "Hey, aside from my work uniform, this is the only one I have," she tells him, walks in with him, takes his hand.

This time around, when the waiter comes by rattling off the wine options, Tommy cuts him short, saying, "No wine, thanks. Just water."

And she feels her mouth curve up in a hint of a smile as she orders water for herself.

"Thanks," she murmurs as she picks up her menu.

The conversations are a stark contrast from the last one they had. It's mostly frivolities and bits and pieces of information scattered here and there. Jane makes it her mission to make Tommy laugh, or at least to talk more. This isn't his natural environment, this isn't where he's comfortable, and from his posture to his voice he stands out from the others in the restaurant, and she likes it. If only he weren't so uncomfortable. Granted, she's probably put him on alert about the possibility of a date ending in bed. She's not sure if he knows she'd like it to be this one.

"So you're half Irish-Catholic, half German-Jewish," he says, setting aside his chicken for a moment. "That's one hell of a combination."

"Yeah. Both of them are large, loud, and emotional and the matriarchs of both families like to exercise guilt over their many children. It's just that the religions are different."

"Do you believe in either of them?"

"I was raised celebrating the holidays of both and now I don't really believe in either." She takes a sip of water. "I don't think I ever did."

Tommy, for his part, is fully Irish (no surprises there, between 'Conlon' and 'Riordan') and comes from a Catholic and inexplicably small family. 'Riordan' was his mother's maiden name, which he took as an adult. Jane may be an only child, but she has thirty first cousins. He comes from generations of working-class Rust Belt stock in which he was considered a diamond in the rough for no other reason than his gift for wrestling. She comes from a generally well-educated lower-middle income background in which she faded and fell through the cracks; was a problem child and fully aware of the fact. Was almost defiant about it for a while.

He has a G.E.D. in place of a high school diploma, and never at any point in his life was he interested in going to college, nor was he ever encouraged to. She had to repeat sophomore year of high school, and despite teachers telling her early on that she was a bright girl, could do very well if she applied herself, she gave up on that eventually.

Though he doesn't say it, she guesses he found his calling in the military, just as she guesses he changed his last name as an act of defiance against his father. Guessing is the best she can do in that area of his life. They skirt over the darker stuff. They've either addressed the darker stuff or can let it wait for another time. A proposition finds its way to the tip of her tongue several times through the evening, and is persistent towards the end, and it causes a kind of tightness in her body, turns her organs in a knot, and makes her heart go faster. It would be unseemly to talk about it during the meal; to say, "So, would you like to come over to my place now that the prospect of being intimate with you is no longer terrifying and test out the sturdiness of my mattress?"

No, she waits until the bill is paid and they step out into the warm late-spring night.

**A**

When he stops outside her apartment she mostly just wants to pull him in without a word.

"You want to come up?" she asks.

His eyes widen slightly and he nods, wraps an arm around her and uses the other to open the door for her. Her heartbeat grows more and more rapid as they ascend the stairs and reach her apartment, and somehow she has the dexterity while her mind's on entirely different things to unlock and open her apartment, pulling Tommy in by the hand, closing the door behind him and locking it again in one swift movement while he kisses her, full and wanting and somehow giving.

"Tommy," she murmurs, hand sliding down to the buttons on his shirt after removing his jacket, letting it fall to the floor.

"Yeah?"

"I've wanted this since long before I knew how to ask for it." She kisses him again, unbuttons his shirt as swiftly as she can, thinking that this is the first time she's ever undressed a man, leading him to the bed, the small but sufficient twin bed, dropping her purse, slipping out of her boots, pulling his shirt from his body and tossing it to the floor, obsessed with what she finds under it. She kisses his left shoulder, the ball-and-socket that had been injured all those months ago, moves onto his chest, bringing her mouth to the tattoo of the masks, dragging her tongue along the outline, bringing her teeth over the most sensitive skin, hears a groan and feels a hand slide up under her dress and over her ass, feels him start pulling the dress's hem up. She turns on the light switch next to the bed.

"I want to be able to see you," she tells him, murmurs it against his lips. "I want to see all of you." Based on his reaction, it's a more effective line than she would have expected.

And she backs him up against the bed until his calves hit the mattress and she coaxes him onto his back. She imagines he'd prefer to be in the dominant position but for now she still needs to explore what she's seen only glimpses of. She needs to be in control, however briefly. She gets rid of his boots because they don't belong on her bed, returns, for a moment, to his mouth and progresses downwards, kissing, licking, sucking and biting a trail down his body, down the muscles in his chest and abdomen, savoring the heat of his skin under her mouth and the muscles that contract at her touch, thinking, '_This man's body is unreal.' _And she reaches the tattoo lowest on his body, one close to the lip of his pants, sits up, enjoying the position of power and the view she has of him from here, and as she undoes the buttons and moves to unzip the front Tommy sits up, stopping her, grabbing her hips so he can pull her dress off of her, holds his arm out over the side of the bed and drops it to the floor.

"We needed to get rid of that," is all he says, and slides his hands once more along bared skin that pricks up at the sensation and unhooks her bra, pulling it from her body and discarding it along with the dress. She freezes and looks down at him as he falls back and watches her for a moment, his lips parted as he takes her in, and she wonders if something's wrong. Right now he sees more of her body than anyone else ever has, and between his gaze and her eyes growing wider as for that same space of time she blanks out, has no idea what to do; it takes the unmistakable sensation of his arousal pressing up against her to remind her that his staring is not a bad thing.

Her hands go back to work, shifting her body as she pulls down his pants, at which point Tommy gives up the submissive-lover position, flipping them over with a swiftness that barely registers until he's leaning over her. After he's lain her down he brings his lips and tongue to sensitive skin, teasing her just as she was teasing him, licks the underside of her breast and trails his mouth over the tip, his hand doing something similar with the other, and she mewls, the sound unbidden with nothing to be done about it, as all the nerve endings in her breasts she wasn't fully aware existed go into overdrive. She loses her breath and her control early on, unused to any of this kind of affection. She's been fucked, not ever really been touched, and since he's fully aware of it he makes sure she knows that he's not one of the guys she's been with, that he's not going to treat her like she's been treated before.

She pulls his head up to hers, tangles fingers in his hair as she kisses him, gasping into his mouth as his right hand trails down and slides under a pair of cotton panties, escalating into a groan, a little of it pain, most of it shocked pleasure, her other hand now grappling at his back, as he readies her, and she finds herself arching, rocking her hips against working fingers, body more sure than her mind and her mind reduced to obscenities and exclamation points. And she wants this. She knows she does. Wouldn't have been able to let things go this far if she didn't.

And then he pulls his hand back out from under that fabric and sits up, looks at her.

"You ready?"

Her first response is to sit up and reach for the waistband of his boxers to pull them off of him. He stops her and repeats the question. "Are you ready?"

She meets his eyes and nods. "Yeah. Ready." She's not a frail, sickly, seventy-five pound virginal wraith who will shatter into a million pieces. Her body can handle his.

He slides her panties down; she helps pull them off of her legs. He manages to keep his eyes on her as he reaches for his pants on the floor beside them, takes his wallet out, and from that pulls a condom, sets it beside him as he pulls off his boxers, and for a moment all she can do is stare. He looks larger than most of the boys she's been with.

He leans forward, leans over her and kisses her, trying to ease her into it, bring her back, but he's helpless against his own arousal, and fumbles with the condom wrapper. Whether it's the fact that the condom's a little bit old, that condoms wear down much more easily inside of a wallet, or simply that he's impatient with putting it on, the latex tears and against their breath there's a silence that overtakes them. He looks at her and the message is loud and clear: 'It's up to you. I'm clean. You're clean and infertile. But this is more your decision than mine.'

She pulls him to her, dropping the wrapping and the ruined latex to the floor, pulls him on top of her, and lets one hand find purchase in his hair, the other against the space between his shoulder blades. He's definitely grateful for that.

**A**

This is the first time he's ever had sex without a condom. The nerve endings in his dick aren't closed off by a latex barrier and between that, the fact that it's been a long time for him, and the keening whimper Jane gives when he enters her, her body tensing and fingernails digging into his shoulders, he has to still himself for several seconds, several lifetimes, and he brings his mouth to the crux of her neck, breathes against the skin during that time, and when he starts moving again, tries very hard to keep his rhythm, well, a _rhythm_ as opposed to uncontrolled thrusting. And he manages; he finds a better release in a soft, slim, so very warm body that he's wanted for so long.

**R**

At first it's painful; she's fully sober, fully alive, nearly two years celibate, and far more sensitive to touch than she'd thought. And when he first pushes into her, she gives an involuntary whimper. And the anxiety starts to fade as Tommy stills his movements, waits for her to give him a signal to start moving again. It's something no one else has ever done for her. And it's another reminder that this is different. What she experienced before was not sex. It was assault, and it is an old story that cannot be rewritten but now is overwritten. She slowly rocks her hips up against his, gives him the okay to keep moving again, hands moving a little when he keeps going; he grips her outer right thigh inches below her second tattoo, pulls it to him for leverage, wonders if she's okay when he goes deeper, and she's definitely okay. When he goes deeper, when he later starts to speed up—she neither knows nor cares how long it goes-she responds in kind, not caring about the sweat and the noise and the moans that are new to her lips. She's too lost to care about any of that, breath getting harsher, body getting impossibly hotter, and the only real coherent thought she has is that she's very, _very_ happy she did a fourth step for this.

He finishes hard, body at that point out of his control. He comes when she is close, nerve-endings blaring and body still pulsing, both breathing hard and both responsible for the sweat on the bed. It takes him a few moments to recover, catching his breath against her throat, until he pulls out of her. And then he does something that takes her by surprise. He slides a hand between her legs and takes her the rest of the way, relentless until she has to shut her eyes against the blaring in her ears, the intensity behind her eyes and in her sex, and when she cries out in a volume that will later get her a complaint from the downstairs neighbor she is completely unaware of it, locking, contracting, tensing, arching against his hand until finally letting go. When she finally opens her eyes she pulls him down to her, and since the dimensions on the bed are less than roomy, they both settle onto their sides, facing each other.

This is the same man who showed an insatiable thirst for violence in MMA matches and harbors a great deal of rage, who cursed her out when she admitted to an addiction that had nothing to do with him. And right now she doesn't care about that part. She cups the side of his face with a warm hand, smiling to herself, laughing to herself because with all the endorphins that have been released, she feels like she could float, soreness, sweat and all. She kisses him again and again, and he pulls her in close to him.

Tommy is a man of contradictions; one thing will negate another; a fighter, a soldier, a protector, a friend, a lover. She's crazy about him, about all these pieces that contradict and somehow complement one another.

Chin just above his shoulder, breasts against his chest, Jane murmurs, "Promise you'll stay the night?"

"I promise." He kisses her, softer than before.

She doesn't get how this could feel natural. But it does. She can feel his heart beat against hers, and it's a rhythm that falls into synch. Eventually they pull the sheets on and turn off the light, because there's not much to be said, nothing to be done now about the clothes on the floor. Nothing they feel like doing, anyway.

It's late and it's peaceful this time of night, and, feeling like they're caught in a dream though things couldn't be more real, they drift into sleep.


	21. The Next Day

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. There will be some back-and-forth between perspectives, sometimes without warning. Oh, and though this chapter also has stronger and more graphic sexual content (but funnily enough it's pared down quite a bit from the original version of this chapter) I need to put it out there that not all chapters from here on out will have sex scenes in them.

**Chapter Twenty-One: The Next Day**

He wakes up at one point during the night; it's common for him. His sleep rarely goes unbroken, and though he almost never remembers whatever it is he was dreaming about, he can guess it almost always involves gunfire, blood, and last words. But this time he wakes up against the sleeping body of a beautiful woman; someone who trusts him in a way she's never trusted anyone else. And for a moment he watches the smooth, unbroken line of her form, feels her breathe, back aligned with his chest as though all is right with the world, and it's easier to get back to sleep. He kisses the tattoo on her shoulder blade and after several minutes sleep finally comes to him, and lasts, perfect and dreamless, until morning.

**F**

He's there when she wakes up. `It's not that she's surprised that he followed through with his promise that this takes her aback, but rather that she's never had someone stay the night with her—outside of a slumber-party setting anyway. She's not used to the weight of someone else in bed, of the touch of skin on skin, of breath against the nape of her neck and a large, warm body against hers. She enjoys the sensation; the security in it. It would be hard not to feel secure in his grasp, one thick arm looped around her, holding her close. Still, she isn't sure what the protocol is for this. Does she have anything in her kitchen he might deem acceptable for breakfast? Or would he want to go home? She's pretty sure Tommy knows the rules for this sort of thing.

She shifts and turns her head back, seeing a face that in sleep looks more at peace than she will probably ever see him when he's awake. She turns her body, careful not to disturb his, and kisses lips that part slightly at the contact.

She smiles a little as he wakes up seconds later. "Good morning," she tells him, and starts to turn away, finding her panties on the floor and slipping them on before sliding out of bed. "Do you want any coffee?"

Tommy, meanwhile, is awake enough only to watch the sway of her hips as she heads to the kitchen, and the question barely registers. Without ever really having to try, she's probably the sexiest woman he's ever encountered. "Uh, sure," he starts to say, but then thinks better of it. She's not a kitchen maid. He's never been the kind of guy who demands his woman make him a sandwich after sex. He gets up, not giving a shit about his own nakedness, and crosses the room to reach her and the weird modesty she seems to have. He touches her arm as she busies herself with the coffee-maker, pouring grounds into the filter. "You don't have to worry about it right now," he tells her.

She bites her lip, eyes wide, and she turns away from the counter. "I just…I don't know how to do this," she says. "I don't know any of it, the 'what happens afterward' part." And just like that, her youth and only partial-experience hit him full-on in the face. She's never slept with anyone, never shared a bed with someone who would be there the next morning. She has one arm across her breasts, and he doesn't get why. He saw her naked only hours ago. She knows he has no problem whatsoever with it.

"What do you feel like doing?" he asks her.

She glances over at the bed and back at him. He gets the cue. "Me too," he says as he trails his hands down her sides before sliding one to her back, the other behind her legs as he tips her into his arms, causing her to yelp and then laugh as he carries her to the bed, far from done with her, lying her down on the bed and kneeling above her before leaning down, going further down south with his lips and tongue, hearing Jane's gasps and broken breathing, feeling every reaction as he continues. There's still a lot he hasn't explored, and he's impatient to find out. He slides down her panties, only for her to grab his wrists, sitting up to stop him. Her eyes are wide and there's something close to panic in them.

"What's wrong?" he asks. He would've expected a reaction like this yesterday, before she let him fuck her, before he slept with her. If anything, he thought she'd be more open to him going down on her than any other act.

"I've never…"

"You never had anyone go down on you. Or make sure you got off. I kind of guessed that."

"I never had anyone who tried," she says.

"I wanna change that," he tells her. She looks doubtful. He sighs. "What would you rather I do?"

She hesitates, slides out of the bed to stand, and lets gravity let her panties fall the rest of the way, stepping out of them, eyes never leaving his face.

"I…I want you to lie on your back," she says, and he does, eyes widening at the command. And he's pretty sure he couldn't be any more turned on when she climbs back onto the bed, swinging her legs on either side of him, watching his face carefully, as if waiting for him to tell her no. But his body can't lie, and she knows he won't. She sits back and slides down onto him.

She's still not used to this; she winces at the pressure and has to force herself to come down the rest of the way, taking the entirety of him into her, and for a moment she's still, adjusting to his size, not realizing that, like before, she whimpers, shutting her eyes for a moment. When she takes her hands from either side of his body and places them on his chest, she's not quite sure what she's doing. She starts to rock her hips, but she's uncertain; an apprentice. She's still in a little pain, but she's adamant. She wants to take the reins. She wants to be on top of him, wants to be the one to make him come. She wants her movements to guide him into his orgasm.

He seems to get all of this. After the initial groan as she took him into her, he brings his hands to her hips and starts to guide her, hands almost skimming over the flesh, not trying to force her into a specific rhythm. It's hard not to want to keep going, to take it further, when he looks up at her with an expression that clearly indicates that he is just fine with this arrangement.

All he can feel at first are tight, impossibly wet walls around his cock. He'd think that he'd be prepared for this, after a night without latex, but he's not. He doesn't even really like being on bottom, but seeing her body, the expanse of creamy skin, the slim, arching body and pert breasts and the way they follow the movement of her hips more than makes up for it. He watches her face, the way she closes her eyes when she sinks down fully onto him, hears the soft whimpering sound and doesn't exactly take pride in it—it's been a lot longer for her, after all—but loves how she tilts her head back, that moment before she starts to move.

She's never been on top, never called the shots and he knows it; it shows. And while he's lost in an overstimulated state that could turn him inside out he's somehow aware of the fact that he might have to guide her, at least at first. He brings his hands to her hips and tries not to grab too hard or let his fingers dig into her skin and tries not to thrust up suddenly like he wants to.

She finds her rhythm and her confidence early on, and he relinquishes all control, pulling his hands away from her hips and sliding them elsewhere, between her legs, teasing her breasts, playing on every reaction he provokes, enjoying the hitch in her breath, the keens and contractions and the sight of it. He gets it; she wants control. She wants to prove she has just as much of a say in this as he does. That even though he's larger and stronger he's not automatically the one who controls everything physical that will go on between them. But that's really not what he's thinking right now. Right now the only thing he's thinking coherently is that he loves the sight she presents: the way her back arches and those tits of hers bouncing in time with her rhythm keeps him more or less hypnotized; the sweet face looking sinful as she bites her lip and lets her head fall back.

She loves his body; spiders her hands across his chest and abdomen, brushes fingertips along the side of his face because from this position she can touch him far more easily. By that same token he can touch her far more easily as well and he takes full advantage of it; stimulates every pleasure zone he can reach, making her speed up, work against him harder, cry out and in turn further stimulate him. She loves the power she has right now. She doesn't want to be treated like a porcelain doll. She wants to ride him. She wants to make him come so hard he sees stars. She wants him to melt under her. Her, the sad, pale, mousey girl who never had any power with men. She finds her movements more easily, and the rocking becomes more certain, confident and she watches him but he's watching her, and it encourages her.

When he starts feeling his climax build, he grips her inner thighs, spreads them a little wider to get to her clit better, and starts rubbing his right thumb around it in a circle, and he hears the groan above him, the keen as she speeds up and brings her own hands to his abdomen. He does it again, this time at the same time his left hand squeezes one of her breasts tight and she clenches harder around him than before, grinds against him harder than before as she cries out louder than before, and he's done in. He comes into her with an insubordinate bucking of hips against hers as he finishes with a hard groan, one that's outmatched in volume by Jane's cry of what's probably a mixture of pain and pleasure as she digs her nails into his chest, lets out a "_Fuck!_" that resounds through the room—something else that her elderly Baptist downstairs neighbor will complain about, but that's the farthest thing from her mind.

It's shortly afterwards that something that's not quite an orgasm, at least not like the one she had the night earlier, brings her through the immediate aftermath. It's still a kind of release, still something that catches her as she catches her breath, added to the slight aftershock as she lifts her hips off of his, separating their bodies.

It doesn't last as long as the first time, but he doesn't care. He watches her flushed skin as she leans forward, slides off of him, and he brings his hands to her ribcage and pulls her down on top of him, her face just above his. Their eyes meet and hers are impossibly wide, the dark brown, the dark green all mixed together and her soft red lips are parted and he has to kiss them.

"Was that okay?" she says, and he almost laughs. Once again, she's become a naïve girl.

He raises a brow. He brings her forehead to his, the sweat mingling and he kisses her again.

"You," he tells her, "are fuckin' amazing."

She starts to laugh. Her eyes are bright and her face is flushed and there's sweat on the sheets and an energy in the air and he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. She brings her head to his chest, curls up into his side because really that's all the room the bed will allow.

"So," she murmurs against his chest, "Does coffee sound better right now?"

He laughs up at the ceiling. "I don't think I'll need it. Wide awake right now." All he can think is that this was worth the wait; he would've gladly waited even longer if it meant he'd be here with her. He doesn't quite get how; he isn't sure what sets him apart, but he knows she doesn't want anyone else; couldn't do anything like this with anyone else.

"You seem like kind of a gentleman," she says, the words muffled a little. She lifts her head and looks at him. "Like you follow some kind of etiquette with things like this."

He trails his fingertips along her spine. "What do you mean?"

"Last night," she tells him. "You made sure I came."

"With the kind of sex you were exposed to, all that time you went without any of it, any guy with a brain in his skull would've made sure you got off. You needed that more than I did." He makes sure she's still looking at him when he says, "A guy who doesn't care if you enjoy it or not isn't worth your time."

"At least two-thirds of women don't climax during sex, at least not most of the time."

"They can still enjoy it. They should get to."

"That's very considerate of you."

He doesn't want to get up. He wants to stay right here, lost in a post-orgasm haze with—and the word seems weird to him, since he hasn't really used it that often—his…_girlfriend_ lying next to him, her breath evening to match his, the side of her face against his heart, being able to feel something like this, allowing himself to feel something like this; the intimacy that's not as familiar to him as Jane seems to think. A stillness that doesn't bother him.

After several minutes she lifts her head up to cast a lazy glance at the clock on the wall, one of constellations and painted suns in place of numbers, and her eyes get huge as she gets up, muttering, "Shit!" as she crawls over him and out of bed.

Tommy sits up as Jane heads to her dresser, her movements a little sore, pulls on a pair of clean panties and then a sports bra. "What's going on?" he asks.

She turns around, trying to alternate getting dressed and explaining it to him. "I have a meeting I have to go to. Usually I can get a ride but today I'm commuting and if I don't leave soon I will be late." She does an odd little dance hopping into a pair of jeans that hang off her hips as she fastens them.

"An AA meeting?" he says, getting out of bed.

"Yeah. One of those."

And it's something he almost forgot about. Or maybe wanted to forget; brushed aside. And the fact stops him short, the way she drops it so casually.

"Do you have to?" he says, and it sounds so childish he almost winces.

"I'm afraid so," she says, now putting on and tying her shoes.

He sighs. He might as well get dressed, too. He finds his boxers on the floor and pulls them on, followed by his pants.

Once she's finished getting dressed, she turns and notices. "I'll be coming back," she tells him.

"Well, yeah, since it's your apartment," he says, tucking his wallet back into his pocket and finding his shirt somewhere a couple feet away. "I have a couple of things I need to take care of, too."

Jane bites her lip.

They end up leaving together, but it's not until they're nearly outside that Jane stops him. "When do I get to see you again?" she asks.

Tommy just looks at her for a moment. Just over a week ago they started back up a relationship that had been rocky in earlier months, the foreplay more mental than physical. Starting last night it's shifted and grown and it's even better than he expected. "When do you want to?" he asks.

She smiles a little at him, shrugs as she says, "The first chance I get."

He can't help but grin back. He smiles more with her than he has in over a year. "You have any mornings free? Just to talk, plan out something to do for the weekend?"

She nods. "Tuesday. My one free morning."

"When're you most awake in the morning?"

"It doesn't really matter; I'm a morning person. If it's after seven, seven-thirty and I've gotten more than three hours of sleep, I'm good to go." Holy shit, he believes that.

"So, what, nine?" Enough time to run, to do as many push-ups as his body will allow, and to get ready.

"Sounds good. Here?"

"Wherever you want," he tells her, and means it. Outside a church basement where twelve-step meetings are held, in the back alley near his apartment, in the pits of hell. If he sees her and she's okay it's fine by him.

She grins; a closed-mouth affair that quirks up one corner of her mouth. "Here, then," she says, leans in, and kisses him, sweet mouth almost smiling against his. And for a second he wonders why he pulled away when all she said was that she was going to a meeting. She's not a born-again Christian with no personality and nothing but shame. She's just _her_.

As they head out the door, he asks, "Does _he_ know that you know me?"

She doesn't seem bothered by the question. And her answer puts him at ease. "Nah. Not unless you told him yourself or he's capable of telepathy." She understands the look on his face. "I don't think that it's my call to make. He's your father, not mine."

"Thanks." He doesn't need to add that he'd rather she continue keeping quiet about it. He isn't going to swap war stories with the old man and he sure as hell isn't going to talk about women with the old man. He couldn't talk about his own experiences if he wanted to. And Pop is the last person on earth who could give advice about women. He doesn't get to know about it.

As they head off in separate directions, he glances behind him, raises an eyebrow at the baggy jeans and tee-shirt she has on. He likes that he's the only person who gets to see the sweet body underneath those oversized clothes.

E

She's still a little late to the meeting, and more heads turn in her direction than usual. She doesn't think she looks _that_ frazzled, even if it's humid out and the soreness between her legs shows in her walk (which it does _not_.) She sits across from Dionne, who catches her eye and looks down as though she's trying not to either grin or roll her eyes as the contact sheet comes around and a newcomer gets a welcome packet.

Patrick's been coming to the meeting on Jefferson Street most Sundays for the past several months, which doesn't help matters. The awkwardness of sitting through twelve-step meetings with Tommy's father was already uncomfortable when she found out the two were related. Now she's certain he has a Dad-radar of some sort—hell, maybe he _is_ capable of telepathy—and that at one point in which he smiles at her those blue eyes can get in one glance that she fucked his youngest son, the apple of his eye, just earlier this morning.

She doesn't usually share at meetings, and much prefers to listen because there's not much she can say that no one else isn't already saying. And though she's crossed a bridge she was terrified to even face, though she's completely, giddily happy and grinning like an idiot at several points during the meeting, she holds back from sharing why. Some things you don't share at meetings. Some things you keep a little closer, and share with a sponsor and few people else.

And because her sponsor is her lifeline, she and Dionne catch up in private after Jane drinks a Styrofoam cup of coffee that scalds her tongue and throat, goes to the bathroom and finally faces the woman who might not have telepathic powers but does have much more of an idea of what's going on in Jane's life.

"You really meant it when you said you wanted to take things farther soon," she says in a near-whisper as they leave the church, avoiding people coming in for the late service.

Dionne's car was in the shop earlier that morning but now she can give Jane a ride and take away another excuse to avoid telling the truth.

"So the two of you went for it," she says.

"That's not a question, is it?"

"Hell no. The way you're walking? The way you kept smiling even when you showed up late? And come on. I'm a woman. I know a post-coitus glow when I see it."

The post-coitus glow that's turning into a blush. "Well, I followed your rules, at least." She adds, "It was good advice. Thank you."

After a few moments, Dionne says, "I'm glad it was a pleasant experience for you."

She says it because she can't quite keep it down. It's hard for her to keep things from her sponsor. "He made sure I got off. He didn't force me into anything I wasn't ready to do."

Dionne smiles a little, watching the road. "Amazing how different it is when the man wants to make it good for you."

"Just how much does this change everything?"

"It pushes things into new territory. You may need to play things by ear. There will be things you'll need to spell out for him."

"Yeah." She sighs and sits back. She's sore and it's the only real proof to her that she's not in some incredible dream from which she'll wake up and find none of it ever happened.


	22. To Feel Something Good

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. Belated Oscar comment: I really like Christopher Plummer and admire his work but I fully believe that he received the Academy Award not for his performance but for his underrated career. In terms of performance, I think it should have gone to Nick Nolte. P.S: I'm very sorry about the delay. My life has been a wreck, lately.

**Chapter Twenty-Two: To Feel Something Good**

When Jane comes back from her meeting she sees a piece of paper taped to her door, with the signature declaring it's from the woman downstairs. She furrows her brow. Mrs. Shropshire would still be at church around this time. She must've put the sign up earlier.

She pulls the paper off of the door and reads what at first seems like some kind of joke.

_Dear Jane,_

_I wanted to let you know that even if you think I'm an old woman my hearing is still good enough that I could hear your sinful activities last night and this morning. Up until now I haven't complained because you hadn't given me any reason to think that I should. But having to deal with the volume of your indiscretion is something I will not tolerate. If you refuse to keep your legs closed and continue to risk damnation I suggest you do so in a different location._

_-Mrs. Shropshire_

She's pretty sure she should feel annoyed, maybe self-righteous, but instead she starts laughing. It's enough to assuage the sudden, inexplicable sadness of returning to an empty apartment. She's always been private, hated the concept of having so much as a roommate, but now she doesn't want to be alone in a shoebox of a studio apartment with a bed meant to contain only one person but has proven to be durable enough to handle the "sinful activities" of her and someone significantly larger and stronger than she.

It has changed everything in ways she had not imagined. It's like something has been turned on a bit later for her than others and now she feels the full force of it all, the lust and the understanding that she can satiate it, that she's actively sleeping with someone, sharing laughter, sharing sweat and everything else to the chagrin of older folks.

She doesn't regret any of this. And while his touch, his sex is something she enjoys instead of dreads like she did with all forms of physical contact before him, it all scares the hell out of her. Did she take things too fast?

_You're not thinking with your head right now. You're thinking with your pussy._

_I've wanted this since long before I knew how to ask for it._

But it's happened. They've done it. Twice. And they both enjoyed it. Just the memories of it send an insistent ache through her body, and it's like she's finally learned how to feel. All of a sudden the warmth, the giddiness turns into something else, an odd overwhelming sensation that twists at her insides. She ends up running a couple of errands just to keep herself busy, to avoid thinking about it, but she can't escape her body, which remembers what her mind somehow tries to shut off. Her body won't let it go, persists with how it felt to have someone touch her like that, the phantom sensations of Tommy's mouth on her breasts, hands traveling like sentient beings, cock filling her up, seed spilling into her. It makes her self-conscious throughout the day as she avoids other's gazes and acts like there's never any pressure building inside of her.

She resolves to call Dionne that night, but gets caught up studying for Advanced Spanish and ends up forgetting to do it, or at least that's the excuse she uses.

Work goes more slowly but conversely provides her with a distraction. Screaming children? Bring it on. Finicky diners with specific enough orders to give Meg Ryan a run for her money? Fine. Guys from either the U-Pitt or Carnegie Mellon summer football camp sneaking glances at her tits and asking if there's some agreement, that if they eat the food fast enough it's free? Whatever. She can deal.

After work Monday she and Carlos talk for a few minutes before she goes home.

"The arrangement we made last week about you coming over…?" he starts.

"Of course it's still on! What would make you think otherwise?" Jane says.

"Because it looks like it's back on with your man and I didn't want to interfere." He smiles a little at her '_How on earth did you know?_' look and says, "You're in a crazy-good mood again. And the way you're walking kind of reminds me of that time in college I came across a guy nicknamed 'The Python.'"

Jane pulls a face while laughing and Carlos grins as he offers a good-natured hug. "I'm still not backing down from seeing you guys this weekend. How about if I brought him along?"

Carlos furrows a brow. "Are you sure? I wouldn't want you to have to drag him over to visit your gorgeous gay friends and their amazing food."

"For a couple of hours? I don't think he'll mind. I'll ask him. If not, I'll still meet you guys in the afternoon and wait until the evening to see him."

**F**

When he shows up she meets him outside.

She smiles, shields her eyes for a second from the glare of the sun. "You want to go for a walk?" she says.

She's pretty sure he'd prefer to go upstairs to her apartment, and the thought crosses her mind as well. Then again, her neighbor's inside, probably waiting for Jane to bring up the man with whom she's been sinning so she can chew them both out, and she has no interest in addressing that now. For her part, though, she shows Tommy the letter, and he laughs; it's a sound she loves, mostly because he doesn't laugh often, and hell, anything to see him smile.

"Is it weird that I see it as a challenge and not a warning?" Jane says as Tommy hands it back.

"Probably not, if I was thinking the same thing. Give her some real noisy sinful activities to complain about." She smiles at the idea, unable to hide the slight blush growing across her cheeks. Is it normal to still get bashful, considering they've already done things past blush-worthy? She's still on edge, even now while with him, though all this somehow makes her feel contented, filled but simultaneously exhilarated and more than a little frightened. She doesn't know how much of this he gets, or feels in return. She glances at his hands, thinks that he's the only person who's taken the time to explore her body; he's the only one she ever allowed to do it. She watches him and voices something that's been pestering her.

"You really didn't have sex during all that time?"

Tommy looks disgruntled. "What, you'd rather I had fucked other girls?"

"No!" she flushes scarlet with anger at the very thought and admits, "I hate the idea of you with someone else. Even if it was during those three months we weren't…you know."

"Yeah. Same."

"It's just a little surprising, you know; that you hadn't been with anyone for several months before then, before we met. You could've gotten it easily, if you wanted."

"When I was training I was staying with my old man. It'd been one of his conditions to train me for Sparta. It just would've been weird to bring a girl over. Especially since my room was this space I used to share with my brother when we were kids and the beds were small—"

"So is mine, but that didn't seem to be a problem."

"Becauseit belongs to you. And even if that hadn't an issue I was too caught up in prepping for Sparta I didn't have the time for anything like that. My body was serving one purpose only. And after that," he bites his lip, tucks it to the inside of his mouth, "I was in too much pain to really want to."

"You didn't have to do anything to put stress on your shoulder."

"I know. That isn't what I meant. Just being in that kind of pain turned me off. I couldn't get my body to work; not the way it used to, anyway."

They keep walking a little longer, and Jane remembers the arrangement she and Carlos made the previous week. "I have a couple of friends I'll be meeting for lunch Saturday afternoon. Would you like to meet them?"

He hesitates. "Are they from meetings?" he asks. It's still something that bothers him. He wishes it didn't.

"No. A friend from work named Carlos and his boyfriend Michael. They're hilarious. And Carlos is one hell of a good cook. I'm not even talking just burgers and fries; I mean pretty much anything."

His expression deadens a little all the same, and she picks up on it. "Does it bother you that they're gay?" she asks without accusation, but with a little disappointment that makes him look away.

"No," he tells her, "It's just that I just wanted to spend the weekend with you, not with anyone else."

"I…well," she almost laughs. The genuine interest in and attraction he has to her is something that still surprises her. Guys like him don't go for girls like her, or at least that's what they've both heard. But she doesn't question it, at least not right now. "It'll be only a couple of hours out of the weekend." She procures a small smile, a plea with her eyes; he looks at her and the corners of his mouth twitch upwards for a moment.

"Yeah, sure."

She remembers something else. "I didn't think you were but just to be safe, you're not allergic to cats, are you?"

"No. How many do they have?"

"Oh, just one. A really affectionate one. He's a silly, happy little thing."

"A cat that acts like a dog," he says, a hint of a smile matched with heavily-lidded eyes.

"Yeah," she replies, amazed that he remembers that conversation. "A real sweetie; he might jump into your lap." She's silent for a while, just walking with him. "Would you get upset if I said that this kind of scares me?" she says, looking right at him.

Tommy looks back, and then away. "Nah. I get it." And he does; there's no malice in the statement. He exhales a sharp breath. He's not good at this, goddamn it. He doesn't know how to say the words right, doesn't know how to talk like this, shift gears and talk about relationships. He could handle going overseas and risking his life on a regular basis, could handle things that were painful, confrontational, violent, because that's the person he was trained to be, not just in the Corps. If anything, it was the rest of his miserable fuckin' life. But this? He doesn't know. "It's, uh, it's different."

"Yeah." She takes a deep breath, tries to laugh on the exhalation, and asks him how physical therapy with David's going. He tells her it's good. He doesn't mention they grabbed a beer at one point after a session when David was free for the rest of the afternoon, where David told him a little about his family; his eight-year-old twin kids, a girl named Toni and a boy named Malachi, and something else seemed to click into place, something else he'd been missing for too long. The feeling of a casual friendship, which is something he hopes continues after PT's over. David has a lot of the same easy-going warmth and lack of bullshit that Manny had, and that he admires in a person.

Yeah, he knows why she's scared. Things feel right, feel great, actually, even though they're both in situations they've never had before, and it feels like something should be getting in the way. Like the other shoe's about to drop. There's one way it could drop for him—if he's finally found—but he can't think about that right now. And sure as hell can't talk about it. Instead he takes her hand. "Maybe it's time you actually got what you wanted without any strings attached. Ever thought of that?"

She smiles.

**E**

Saturday afternoon, he meets her outside, and she tells him about them as they take the bus to the center of Pittsburgh, where the apartments turn into modest houses with clean front yards.

"Michael does pretty much what I would like to do someday. He works for a nonprofit organization that raises awareness about sexual abuse and discrimination, and addresses child abuse."

"So, social work?"

"Exactly." She grips the rail when there aren't enough seats and they both stand. "I won't go on about what I've seen, read about and heard about, but it's kind of personal to me."

Well…_yeah_.

"All right, we're here." They get off and head to a house that's identical to the ones around it except for the herb garden on the front porch, some of the plants shaded, some of them in the sun. When they knock on the door, a guy in his late twenties opens it, smiling and welcoming them both in. Tommy notices his nose looks like it's been broken a couple of times. "Come on in," the guy, who he guesses is Michael, tells them, holding the door open.

It's a nice place; kind of small for a house, but clean and the walls are lined with drawings and paintings, most of them of people. And not glamorous portraits, either. Most of the people in the drawings are pretty average-looking, or rendered in a way that their appearances don't matter; it's about how they're done. He doesn't know anything about art, but he knows he likes it. The work's kind of stylized, but not pretentious or anything like that.

He and Michael shake hands and introduce themselves, and he's okay at this part; his mother taught him manners.

"Is Carlos still in the kitchen?" Jane asks, grinning as she accepts a hug.

"Not anymore," comes a voice from the kitchen, and another guy in his twenties emerges to say hello, to shake Tommy's hand and introduce himself, to urge them both to have a seat. A small marmalade tabby waddles out of the kitchen behind Carlos, following him like a shadow, squeaking and mewling for attention until he catches sight of Tommy, who is by now sitting on the couch next to Jane, and jumps up onto the arm of the couch next to him. Tommy's eyes widen, mirroring the cat's as it leans in and sniffs him, eyes wide in genuine curiosity. He's a damn-near kitten-sized cat that gives a loud purr when Tommy hesitates, and after Michael's encouragement ("Don't worry; he's neutered and he doesn't have rabies") reaches out and pets him. The cat not only keeps purring, but gives a squeak every time Tommy pets him.

"Hey, could you pass him this way?" Jane asks, and after Tommy obliges, scooping the cat up as gently as he can and passing him to her, she immediately stands the cat up on his hind feet in her lap, raising the front paws with the whites socks that look like mittens, going, "Penguin!" to show the expanse of fluffy white belly, ruff and socks. She kisses the top of the cat's head and immediately picks him back up to hold him like a baby, exclaiming in a high-pitched voice, "Little 'un! Little baby _cutie_ 'un!"

Alarmed and wondering where his girlfriend went, Tommy says, "Come on, cats hate that…" and he's silenced by the sound of purring as Jane kisses the top of the cat's head again as it lies placidly as a sleeping baby in her arms.

"He's a weird cat," Michael concedes. "His name's Fuzznugget. As long as he's being shown attention and affection, he really doesn't care how demeaning it is."

"Didn't you realize?" Carlos adds, grinning. "Your girlfriend has a soft spot for animals. I think the term is 'squeeing' over cute animals."

It seems lunch is ready immediately, and at one point the cat jumps into Carlos's lap, not interested in the food but purring as he sits as though the man's lap is a throne, and he can see everyone's faces.

And Jane's right. The food is great. The guys are hilarious. He didn't know any gay people growing up and if he did they were people who were too afraid of being persecuted to be honest about it, so all he knows is stereotype. Carlos is a little closer to it; he has a lisp and a more outrageous sense of humor. It turns out he's the person that did all the drawings and paintings, and makes a decent income off of his art as well. At one point he gets serious.

"When I went to art school, professors and administration told me, learn a trade, get certified in something, find a decent job that you can stand, because you won't be able to live off your art the second you graduate. Probably not for a long time after you graduate. And let me tell you: there is no such thing as a starving artist. Decent art supplies cost a buttload."

"But it's worth it?"

"Oh, god, yes. It's not even getting paid to do something you love. It's not. When someone buys a painting, the money is nowhere near as satisfying as the knowledge that someone likes something you drew or painted so much they want to keep it in their house, look at it every day and show it to people who stop by." At one point he gives Michael a secret smile; one that's meant for just the two of them, but Tommy sees it.

He looks down. He'd gotten so used to being the single friend of couples that for a moment he's transported back to that time, and he's staying over at Manny's house while they're on leave, taking the couch while Pilar offers to set him up on a date with one of her friends, but he honestly doesn't care, though he can't help but feel fascinated by the bond of such a loving couple. Thousands of miles apart for so much of the time but still holding onto that spark that always makes him feel like he's intruding on something special, something made by God, if he believed in him, which he hasn't in years.

He glances over at Jane, who looks at him with a small smile, as if to say, '_Was I right? Completely painless_.' It's not entirely true. He's thirty fucking years old. He'll be thirty-one in the fall. And he's only starting to get to experience a real relationship, one where he doesn't have to worry about when he'll have to leave for a country thousands of miles away, worry about whether he'll come back alive. And _that_ worries him. He knows more about sex, knows more about the short-term things, but he's just as clueless as Jane about the idea of relationship commitment.

But he's pretty sure he loves her. Which also kinda scares him.

He's stuck in his own mind. He needs to get up, move around, because his knuckles are going white around his water glass and if his grip gets any tighter the glass will break. He can't look at anyone.

Then Michael and Carlos ask him what he does, tell him he's a lucky man having Jane, as if he didn't know already. They ask how the two of them met, and Jane is the one who tells them.

"Holy shit, that's romantic," Carlos says. "The whole damsel-in-distress thing; yeah, it's cliché and feminists hate it but seriously, that's sweeter than Ryan Gosling in a chocolate fountain. And you're usually the damsel-who's-doing-just-fine, thank-you-very-much."

Jane grins at the comment. "At the time it didn't feel very romantic, just terrifying, but I see your point."

Tommy appreciates that if either of the men have heard of him as either a soldier or an MMA fighter, they don't mention it. They treat him the way Jane did; like they're getting to know who he is outside all that. And he gets part of why Jane's so at ease with them; she seems to relate to men just as easily as women, but she knows without any doubt that neither of these guys will ever hurt her the way she was hurt in the past. And Michael…something about him seems old, though he couldn't be older than Tommy. An old soul, like Jane; like him; something a little damaged about him. When he talks about his work, Tommy wonders if, also like him and Jane, he knows what it's like to be abused, to be hurt. It takes him out of himself a little, makes sitting down, being still easier to deal with. Carlos, Michael and Jane are talkative enough that, between the three of them, he really doesn't have to say a thing, and he prefers it that way.

They're at the house for nearly four hours, talking, laughing, walking around and looking at art pieces, and he realizes he doesn't mind having to hang out with Jane's friends. They were four hours he liked, not four hours wasted. And they were still with her. They walk partway, both wanting to move around more after spending several hours mostly sitting down, and he likes the way her hand fits into his. Times like this he feels almost normal. Actually feels something good, and lets that feeling stay.

**A**

Tommy isn't sure how to phrase it, how to admit it; now that he knows what it's like to have sex without a condom, he really doesn't want to go back to using one. The way it feels when it's his skin against hers, the full force of it, is just too fuckin' good.

So he's relieved when she's the one who says it. "I was thinking," Jane says, a coy smile on her small, rosebud mouth. "Since we've both been tested, we're both clean, and, well, I'm barren as granite, unless it's a force of habit…"

"It doesn't have to be," he says immediately, knowing exactly what she's talking about.

She grins a little wider. "So it's really as much of a pleasure-deadener for men as they say?"

He shrugs. "I didn't know until last week whether it was true or not. But kind of."

"All right, then," she says. And it's clear she wants it as much as he does. She's nowhere near good enough of a liar to convince him otherwise.

They head to her apartment; Tommy insists that his place, while no smaller than hers, is far less romantic despite the full-sized mattress (no bedframe, just the mattress) and as Jane moves to pull up his shirt, she hesitates. "Have you been through this before?"

"I've dated a few times, yeah," he says, not really looking at her.

"I mean, like this. No worries about heading off to war or anywhere else. All the time in the world to take things farther."

"No."

"Me neither." After a few moments, "It scares the hell out of me."

"Me, too."

"But I really want it. I want to keep going." Her eyes are enormous. And he can't believe he felt any kind of rage towards her.

Instead of continuing with the "yeah, me, too" bit, he just kisses her. And kisses her again, until that tightly-wound, high-strung body starts to relax in his grip and he can pretend that he's not tightly-wound at _all_.

But then Jane nips at his neck, his pulse point, soothing each nip with her tongue, and he no longer has to pretend.


	23. Pink Cloud

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor. The reference Jane makes is to the post "Adventures in Depression" from the blog "Hyperbole and a Half."

I need to clarify: Jane is infertile. Period. I promise I am _**not**_ throwing out a red herring and setting up a "she's not really infertile and later gets pregnant" scenario. She has some health issues that will be given more attention and clarification later on.

**Chapter Twenty-Three: Pink Cloud**

Tommy skims his fingertips along the tattoo on Jane's right hip, and then reinforces the touch with a sliding palm of his hand. "That's gotta be the ugliest fuckin' tattoo I've ever seen," he says, grinning a little. "It looks like a rash."

Jane laughs. Even while spent, sweat drying and breath back to normal, she still finds that every touch warms, assures, and excites her; raises the flesh under Tommy's hand. "I know. It's supposed to be a patchwork heart, not that anyone could ever tell." She turns her head away for a moment, still lying on her side. "It was a major high school mistake."

"You make a lot of those?"

She knows she doesn't need to answer that. She smiles a little to herself, remembering an event that was horrifying at the time but is now pretty damn funny, at least to her. There aren't many of those kinds of memories. "I was sixteen. A guy that sold me weed had gotten an ink machine, wanted to be a tattoo artist, and I offered to be one of his guinea pigs."

"That _was_ a mistake."

"It only gets dumber from here. I was drunk when I showed up at his house to get the tattoo, because I'd been worried about the pain. I was too drunk to fully comprehend that the guy was fucking _lit_. He screwed it up so badly he felt bad when I showed it to him later and he gave me my money back."

He laughs with her, but asks, "You ever think of getting it removed?"

"I've thought about it. And no, I don't think I will. I like it, in a weird way. It's a reminder of who I've been and what I've done and how far I come. And when I feel like a complete loser, a waitress and part-time community college student living in a shitty apartment in a shitty part of town, I can look at this and think, 'Hey, I'm doing all right.'" She laughs a little again and bites her lip.

Instead of laughing with her, he once more slides his hand along the tattoo, slides his whole body down to replace his hand with his tongue and then his lips, and he hears her breath hitch, her body contract, hears a soft moan.

"It kind of scares me," Jane says, knowing what he's about to do.

He knows. "Why?"

"What if you don't like it?" she asks, and it just sounds so childlike she can't help but wince. "That's not what I meant. It's just…it's really…I don't know…intimate."

Tommy lifts himself up on one elbow and looks at her. "There's no way I'm not going to like it." She laughs a little, sounding nervous, sounding breathless. Her body is already becoming high-strung, and he can tell. He tries to calm her down as he lowers his head.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he mutters against the soft skin, coaxes her onto her back. He knows she can hear him. He waits for a response.

He doesn't have to wait long. A hand gently threads through his hair, stops at the nape of his neck. "I know," she tells him. She doesn't add, '_Not physically, anyway_.' She doesn't have to. He's hurt her verbally and emotionally, but she knows, is as certain of this as her heartbeat; he will never strike her, will never rape her, will never do any damage to her body. And now, coaxing her body into something that terrifies her a little, bringing her to face a fear that's outmatched only by the anxiety over this whole relationship, he does the exact opposite of damage. Tastes her, touches her and every intimate detail; eats her out until she's certain she'll die from the sheer nerve-popping pleasure of it. He seems to be hell-bent on making her come so loudly that her downstairs neighbor will have realized she'd had nothing to complain about earlier, not in comparison to this.

He likes spinning her out of control, likes that she's sensitive to every little thing. He likes that she squirms, twists and arches, biting her lip and trying not to be too loud, as he raises his head at one point and sees it. _Twist and shout_, he thinks, and goes back to work. She's so _there_, so present, that she couldn't censor herself if she wanted to, he likes that, too. He holds her hips steady when her body starts to tremble, feels a hand brush against the back of his head, trace his shoulders and his hands on her, the grip becoming tightens hard over his hand when she reaches a climax that wracks her whole body, sending it into spasms as she loses control.

When she comes down, her breath starts to return to normal, he leans back up and looks at her, the flushed face and eyes only just starting to open again, and he uses the same words she used nearly a week ago. "Was that okay?" he says, unable to stop from grinning, because she's looking at him as though he's just walked across water.

She smacks his shoulder—his right, of course—lightly in response and pulls him down to her, and the force she kisses him with, tasting herself on his mouth, is all the answer he needs. It's not long before he's ready for a second round, and so is she. Pent-up months of wanting to do this with her, wanting to touch, taste, take her over and over, spill over again. It's no less strong than the first time; in fact, it seems to get better.

This is pretty much how it goes the rest of the night. The only times either of them leave the bed are to use the bathroom, and, at one point, to get some water and dinner, salvaging the contents of Jane's fridge. He doesn't share information about himself. She questions him a little, asking him about the origins of his tattoos (she counts six, and he explains none of them) or whatever prior experience he had with MMA, or where he lived between Pittsburgh and wherever the military shipped him. He doesn't talk about any of these things, avoids the questions, and she gives up, finally sharing more stories from high school. Not the ones that haunted her for the longest times. Not the most painful ones, but stupid mistakes she made from which a little humor can be gleaned, and they manage it. She tells him about how in her (second) sophomore year of high school she held onto a friend's weed for him, got caught with it (by cops, no less) and had to spend the night in a holding cell. It had been a school night, to sweeten things up.

She tells him she won two superlatives her senior year: "Most Likely to Party" and "Most Likely to Sleep in Class." She tells him how she was hung-over when she took her SAT. "I got a high score on it, considering."

She makes herself laugh a couple of times, makes him laugh, which is even better.

"Were you a drug-addict?" he asks eventually.

She pauses, gives it thought. "Drugs were a part of my downward spiral; not meth or crack or anything like that, but weed, salvia and sometimes acid, Percocet, Adderall, and coke on two occasions, one of them being the last time I ever drank. Mostly it was weed. I gave all that up along with drinking, but they weren't things I was interested in doing without alcohol. I used weed and sometimes salvia and Percocet as hangover remedies, but otherwise I didn't want the drugs without the alcohol. Which was pretty stupid, if you think about it. Combining alcohol and acid? I'm amazed I made it out alive." She gives it some more thought. "I'm a substance addict. Alcohol was my main demon. Drugs and depression supplemented it."

"Depression?"

"Yes; very much. I can't for the life of me remember who said it first, but trying to force yourself to be happy, trying to use willpower to overcome the kind of apathetic sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn't going to work. Something is fundamentally wrong. It's like a disease. Sometimes it lies low; sometimes it feels like it takes over my body. It's all I can do even now to keep going to work and going to meetings during those times. I take some prescribed medication for it. Felt a little weird at first; 'a mind-altering drug? Shouldn't I stay away from those?'"

"Do they work?" he says, cynical.

"Sure. It doesn't get rid of the depression. That's pretty much permanent. It just helps." Jane sighs, lies back, and says, "The horrible thing I learned from rehab, people who have that switch, that 'addict' part in them, can become addicted to nearly anything. I mean, things_ I_ can't imagine wanting to do. Bulimics who got addicted to throwing up, to _enemas_. Shit like that, no pun intended."

"Oh, God," he mutters, winces at the information.

"Change topic?"

"Please."

"Have you talked to Brendan since his birthday?"

"Not that topic."

"But I don't want to keep talking about myself," she protests, propping herself up on her side, her arm propping her head up as she grins a little at him, doe-eyes pleading a little. "Your life is a hell of a lot more interesting than mine, and there's so much of it I'm not allowed to know about."

Tommy sighs and rolls over onto his back. "Okay. Yeah. Once."

"How'd it go?" Jane says, immediately curling up against him, the solid wall of his chest, the body heat. It's intoxicating to her. His size and build is incredibly comforting when it's not intimidating. Even more so is the arm he wraps around her, holding her to him.

"Fine, I guess. It was over the phone. I'm not gonna travel more than five hours every time he wants to catch up. He's doin' okay."

She nods against his chest, against the tattoo of the masks.

"Don't you got family that keeps in touch?"

"Hey, don't try to divert my attention."

"But don't you?"

She waves her hand in a "kind-a, sort-a" gesture. "It's a much larger family. Now that I'm clean and sober and several states away, it's easy for them to forget about me. Nowadays I can usually get out of birthdays and family gatherings, what with the distance and all." She lifts her head to look him dead in the eye when she tells him, "My family, for all intents and purposes, is here." He understands, even if he'd rather not. She eventually lays her head back down and absently trails her fingertips along his chest and abdomen, feeling the rise and fall and thinking that this is what it's like to be completely at peace.

They eventually fall asleep that way. Jane falls asleep first. It takes Tommy a little longer, and he stares up at the ceiling. Earlier he thought he might love her. Now he knows he does. And part of him wants to leave and not look back, because it doesn't _scare_ him, but it's…unnerving. What he does instead is wrap his arm tighter around her and close his eyes, knowing that sleep will come eventually.

**F**

There's a part of her that she hadn't realized existed. If she believed in fate, she'd have thought that Tommy was the person meant to help her find it. The part of her that isn't afraid to be intimate with someone; the part that finds all this natural; the part that isn't terrified of him seeing her undressed and vulnerable.

Maybe it's because she feels somehow powerful; she affects him, even though she's more transparent about it. A naïve part of her, one she hopes is not too foolish, believes he'll open up to her at some point; maybe not to share the more traumatizing aspects of his youth or time spent in combat, but still something else, something to keep her from having to be the one to supply mostly one-sided conversations. He's not an open book. He's not talkative. She gets that. But she knows he's present, mentally and emotionally. His eyes don't glaze over when she talks.

Things actually seem perfect right now; the things that aren't can simply be brushed aside, for right now they don't matter. She's heard this state described as a "pink cloud." She hears the trouble with pink clouds is that you eventually fall off of it, but she can't picture that, and wouldn't want to anyway.

When she falls asleep she can feel someone breathing against her, can feel warm flesh against hers. This is what life is. This is what existence is about.

**E**

The next morning Tommy's restless. He likes sharing the single-side bed and the warmth of Jane's soft little body against his, her mouth trailing over his skin with growing confidence. He likes the sexy, sleepy smile she gives him as he gets up.

"Hey," she murmurs.

"Hey," he responds, finding his clothes on the floor and pulling each article on one by one. He needs to go back to his apartment, getting his workout clothes, go running, something like that because it's not that he wants to leave so much as it's something his body not only craves but demands. He glances behind him, at Jane as she lies on her side, still curled up with her legs tangled in the sheets and her breasts exposed for him and damn, he wishes he could stay.

She watches him as he reaches for his shirt. "At risk of making this sound like the morning-after scene from _Romeo and Juliet_, it's still pretty early."

"It's not like I'm leaving town. I'll be back." Jane bites her lip and looks up at him with her sad doe eyes. Tommy almost groans at the ploy. "You go to your meetings on the weekends. I work out. I need it."

Jane sighs. "Okay. But can you stay here just a little while longer?"

He raises his eyebrows and drops his shirt, turning back to the bed in time for her to laugh and push him to his back, straddling him, only for him to switch their positions.

"'Twas the nightingale, and not the lark," Jane laughs, tilting her head and gasping as his mouth trails down her neck.

This continues for a couple of weeks; neither of them questions the arrangement. They can't really sleep together in the middle of the week. Tommy has to get up early in the mornings and Jane warns him that after a waitressing shift, she is dead below the belly-button. Still, they make arrangements and a couple of conversations during the workweek and spend as much of the weekend together as they can, and every time they're both surprised by how easily this comes to them. Jane still goes to meetings on the weekends, and Tommy still exercises.

"Hey," she told him the second weekend they slept together, "Just because your father skipped meetings for you doesn't mean I will."

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, look what happened to him," he replies.

He takes her out to parts of Pittsburgh he remembers fondly, and there aren't many of those, but it's something. They go back to the Zoo now that the weather's warm and there's a wider variety of exhibits. They both realize they don't care where they go as long as the other is there, too.

Neither of them are fans of PDAs, so there's no kissing in the polar bear tunnel like so many couples choose to do. There's a lot of laughter, he remembers.

The days go too quickly. At one point in early July after a meeting Patrick stops Jane and tells her that she's been looking so happy, so radiant lately.

"Whatever you're doing, maybe I should do it, too," he says.

And, oh, god, it's too much. Jane holds the rail of the steps as she bursts out laughing. Poor Patrick is left standing there, looking bewildered and wondering what he said that was so funny.

"I'm sorry," Jane says, wiping her eyes. "It's just…uh, it involves a man."

"Oh!" Patrick laughs a little. "All right. Statement withdrawn. But I'm glad he's making you happy." He smiles and heads to his car.

She can't quite keep from giggling a little afterward. '_No, you would not want to do what I'm doing,_' she thinks. '_Especially seeing as I'm doing your son_.'


	24. Doses of Reality

I do now own "Warrior." It belongs to director Gavin O'Connor.

This part goes out to women with fertility issues or have had their cycles screwed around with due to medication or illness. It's also a giant "fuck you" to those who still think menstrual cramps are psychosomatic.

There is also a synopsis of Harold and Maude. I've tried my best not to spoil it too much, but…spoiler alert.

**Chapter Twenty-Four: Doses of Reality**

Jane tries to be as discreet as she can about her medical issues. They're embarrassing, they're personal, and they're outside of a man's comfort zone. (Men try to act all tough, but they all turn out to be afraid of a little blood.) Still, at one point during the summer she has to cancel on a date, and her explanation, "it's kind of a female thing", doesn't prevent him from stopping by and bringing prescription painkillers.

Tommy stops short when he sees her open the door.

She's bent at the waist, clutching her belly, skin looking more waxy than smooth and even paler than usual; there are dark shadows under her eyes and a light sheen of sweat on her face. She's shaking on her feet and he guides her back to her bed after closing the door behind him. He notices the room-temperature water filter and glass on the nightstand along with a box of Midol. "This goes beyond just cramps, bloating and craving chocolate; doesn't it?" he says. Jane responds with a forced laugh and a grimace.

"Part of the whole infertility issue," she says through clenched teeth, picking up and pressing a heating pad against her abdomen.

She went from the age of fifteen to the age of twenty without menstruating; for a time she continually worried about pregnancy, though test after test taken with shaking hands and in the privacy of her bathroom proved her wrong. It took a doctor's visit to diagnose it as amenorrhea; an illness she thought was reserved for starving women. It could've been remedied by changing her lifestyle and habits, but that didn't happen until she was sober. Now, and with the help of medication, she's menstruated twice in the past year. Both times have been short and incredibly painful. Both have sent a burning, tearing sensation throughout her abdomen, punctuated by back pain and cramps that steal her breath and make her cry out, make tears prick behind her eyes. She doesn't want him to see her like this. He doesn't seem comfortable with it, either, but he asks for an explanation and she gives it to him.

"And the worst part," she says, trying to laugh off a cramp that seems to turn her insides into glass only to break them, "is that all this is a sign that I'm getting healthier."

It's brings a kind of gravity to their relationship. He keeps seeing her as the healthy one, physically and mentally. Unless she brings it up, he tends to forget she's "in recovery." And then things like this happen and he remembers she's got her own problems.

What takes her by surprise his how he leans in and brushes her hair away from her face—it's starting to grow out at riotous angles and in thick waves—with his fingertips in a manner so gentle she barely feels his touch. He takes the water from beside the bed and hands her the glass, helping her down a sip.

And she remembers. He took care of someone who was far sicker than she; spent two years of his life doing so. This is not entirely new to him.

He doesn't stick around when he realizes it won't do a bit of good if he does; it won't be the last weekend they get to spend together. They have time.

And he realizes that come the first week of November will be the one-year anniversary of Sparta. Three months. Even now, he's restless. He puts himself through boxing drills and when he does for that time gets taken back. He never dislocated his shoulder, never lost SPARTA, never had to go through any of that shit. It's a year previous and his body's never been damaged. He's a fighter. It's just part of him that's ingrained and has been there almost all his life.

Part of him itches to go back into the cage. Is a year a long enough time to heal?

The thought isn't lost on him. Back in late February he and Jane took three months off from each other and again three months are ticking down.

F

One day after receiving a look of deepest loathing and disgust from Mrs. Shropshire that could shatter steel, Jane tells Tommy she'd rather meet at his apartment that weekend, and, after some protest, the man acquiesces. When she arrives at his flat with her backpack containing her laptop and several DVD's, she understands why he didn't want her to see it.

His apartment, like hers, is a studio with a view of boarded-up flophouses, a sex-toy shop, his gym, and a couple of relatively stable-looking apartment buildings. However, Jane, regardless of her lack of interest in interior decorating, has at least tried her best to make the place feel like home; she keeps it clean and organized, with as much of a personal touch as her sparse furnishings will allow. There is far less of this in Tommy's apartment. It's clean but is clearly a more neglected building than hers and has a neglected feel to it; a mattress minus the frame is kept against a wall and aside from this and a dresser, there is no furniture. However, a couple of photographs on the dresser catch her eye the moment she walks in.

Tommy says nothing; he warned Jane and doesn't need to apologize. He cleaned it up to the best of his abilities. He looks over at her and notices her eye travel to the two pictures he's managed to keep and makes her way towards them. He winces, wishes he'd remembered to put the pictures away, and prepares to talk about more than he's ever ready to.

The first picture she notices is one of a woman with somber, world-weary grey eyes in a relatively young face. She's holding an infant in her arms, and while it's obvious who the child must be, Jane still focuses on the woman. She is a striking woman; all full lips and strong cheekbones but it's the eyes, indeed, her whole demeanor that grabs her attention. It is the look of someone who is solemn and unsmiling, unhappy to say the least but still as strong and dignified as she can manage.

Jane doesn't realize that Tommy's come up behind her until she hears him say, "Mary Riordan. My mother."

"She's beautiful," Jane murmurs, not looking around.

"Not during those last few years," Tommy says. His voice becomes hard.

"You have her eyes."

He has nothing to say to that, negative or otherwise. She looks at the other photo of two men in fatigues. Tommy looks so young in this picture; easily her age, perhaps even younger, and his face is fuller, complete with a genuine smile. By this point he's lost his mother and his childhood home but he's not yet the haunted, enraged man she's known. She doesn't recognize the other man, who looks to be the same age but is smaller and darker.

"Manny Fernandez. My best friend," Tommy answers without her having to ask.

"What happened?"

"He's dead." His voice has a tone of finality to it, and is harsher than before. She pushes her luck.

"When was this taken?"

"When we were nineteen. Around the time his first kid was born." She senses him now, knows when he turns away from the dresser. He doesn't talk much, but still manages to speak volumes. She spares another glance at both photos, both people he cared about and lost, and turns to follow him.

"When did he…?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he says, glancing back at her with a look harsher than any other she's seen on him in months, and she won't dare tell him how petulant he sounds. She was pulling for air anyway.

"Yeah, I know. You never do." She hears him snort and face the window. This isn't a good start. She knows how much he hates being the least bit vulnerable, and letting her into his apartment is a doozy. She takes another tentative step towards him and the way his shoulders are hunched and tensed as if preparing to attack.

She tries to clear the air. "Can I get a glass of water?" she asks.

Tommy turns and looks at her with his eyebrows almost disappearing into his hairline and presses his lips together. After a moment he sighs and heads to the so-called kitchen that is even smaller than hers.

"I brought some movies with me," she calls after him.

He glances behind her. "Yeah?"

She sets her backpack down near the bed and sits down on the mattress as she leans over and unzips her backpack, pulling out each DVD and calling out their respective titles. "Pulp Fiction; Last of the Mohicans; Reservoir Dogs; There Will Be Blood; Gangs of New York; Goodfellas; and for some lighter viewing: The Fisher King; Harold and Maude; Dead Poet's Society."

Tommy comes back with two glasses of water and sits down beside her. "Did you bring your entire DVD collection?" he asks, sounding bemused.

"No. Just most of my favorites."

"But not all of them." He paws through the pile and picks up the Harold and Maude DVD, frowning.

"Pulp Fiction is my reigning all-time favorite, but all of these are movies I haven't gotten tired of watching and probably never will. You're holding my favorite romantic comedy right there," she adds.

Tommy raises his eyebrows and holds the DVD up for her to see, as if she was unaware of what it looked like. "There's gotta be a fifty-year age difference between the two of them." 'Them' being the young man and the elderly woman standing side by side on the front cover.

"Sixty," Jane corrects him and takes a drink of water. "Harold's somewhere between eighteen and twenty. Maude's seventy-nine. They meet when they're both at the funeral of someone neither of them know."

"And they fall in love."

Jane shrugs again. "You wanna watch it?"

Tommy glances at the more masculine choices, most of which he's probably already seen, and says, "Sure. Why the hell not?" He's still cold from earlier but finds an outlet for Jane to plug in her laptop as they both kick off their shoes and settle back on his mattress to watch the film.

E

"…_What brings you joy?"_ a psychiatrist asks young Harold, to which, after a lingering and almost painfully awkward silence, Harold replies in a monotone voice, "I go to funerals."

He can't help it; he laughs along with her. This kid drives a Hearse and has faked his own suicide twice already. He glances over at Jane and plays with a stray lock of hair that covers the side of her face.

"She stole my car!" the priest from the funeral runs off after Maude after she's sped off.

Of course her favorite romantic comedy would be between an old woman who likes to steal cars and a guy even younger than Jane who's obsessed with death. Of course.

And he'll admit it; he laughs when Harold's mother sets him up on several dates, each of which Harold intentionally completely screws up, taking satisfaction in it every time. How long has it been since he's done this? How long has it been since he's just kicked back and watched a movie with someone close to him?

Well, never, really. Not like this.

By the time the end credits roll, she's curled up into him, looking ridiculously cute as she nudges his shoulder with her head. "Would you do that?" she murmurs.

"Play the banjo?"

"No; plan to end your life at a specific age, regardless of what's going on or how happy you are at that moment."

He pauses and glances down at her. "I never thought I'd live that long," he tells her.

"Me, neither." She ejects the disk, puts it in the box, and sets the laptop aside so she can lean in and kiss him. "But all in all; a better romantic comedy than most. Although that's not saying much."

Tommy smiles a little at her. Jane's weird. It's one of his favorite things about her. "I like how this is your idea of a romantic comedy," he tells her as he returns the kiss.

"I could've made you sit through 27 Dresses or one of the Twilight movies."

"And shatter my manhood."

"It would take more than a bad romantic film to do that," Jane says, and slowly pushes him onto his back.

"Oh, come on. You expect me to be able to fuck you after watching a movie about a suicidal kid banging a geriatric?" Tommy says, and while he's mostly joking, Jane raises her eyebrows and slides off of him.

"Oh. No. Of course not." She starts to get up but before she can leave the mattress he pulls her back down.

Jane looks up at him as he braces his hands on either side of her head.

"You're an ass," she says with a straight face, but laughs a second later.

Tommy decides he really doesn't need to tell her about his still—meandering thoughts about fighting again. That can wait. Probably for a while. He gets the feeling she won't like the news.

A

Their neighborhood is not a good one, so one night when a gun goes off less than a block away it's not the most surprising thing in the world, but it wakes them both up.

For Jane, the sound of the gunshot is not as distressing as what happens when she sees Tommy wrench himself out of bed after a quick check to make sure the gun outside didn't pierce his body. He's hyperventilating and shaking in a cold sweat. She knows he sometimes wakes up at night, but she's never seen this before, and isn't sure if it's stupid to reach out and touch his shoulder as slowly and gently as she can.

He jerks away and after a moment turns to look at her with wide, wild eyes, realizing the touch came from someone who is not a threat to him. It takes him a few moments to discern dream from reality. He looks around the apartment and it's the same as always. The same bed, the same couch and desk. He still shakes, and she murmurs, leaning against his back, whispering into his ear, "It's okay. You're okay. I'm here." She repeats it again and again, a soft mantra, hoping her voice is as soothing as she wants it to be, and it feels like it's some kind of lullaby as she coaxes him back into bed. She kisses his shoulder and the nape of his neck, kisses the space between his shoulder blades. It's not something she does in a sexual manner; she does it to provide comfort, to bring him back to her. She does her best to calm his shuddering breaths, to fill the otherwise silent room. He isn't going to talk. She's come to expect that.

The words fall from her lips for the first time; words she's fought back due to trepidation and fear of embarrassment. "I love you," she whispers against the nape of his neck.

His body starts to relax. She doesn't know if that means he heard her or not. But she means it. She holds him, and he eventually relents without a word.

At some point they both fall back asleep; the last thing she thinks beforehand is that yes, she loves him. And for now that fact manages not to scare the hell out of her.

….

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

_I'm pretty sure I know what you're thinking: I waited a month for an update and you give me this shit? _Again?_ I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I probably won't be updating every couple of days like I used to, but I'm not abandoning the story._


	25. Physical Healing Part Two

I do not own "Warrior." It belongs to Gavin O'Connor.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's been a really long time. Sorry. David's story is partially inspired by a high school classmate and fellow cross-country/track and field runner who had a great deal of talent and dedication but ended up shattering her shins due to her former coach's insistence that she continue running even when she developed stress fractures.

"**She loves you too much. Of course, you love her too; it's just that you're kind of an asshole sometimes." –**_The Fisher King_

**Chapter Twenty-Five: Physical Healing (Part Two)**

_**Their neighborhood is not a good one, so one night when a gun goes off less than a block away it's not the most surprising thing in the world, but it wakes them both up.**_

_**For Jane, the sound of the gunshot is not as distressing as what happens when she sees Tommy wrench himself out of bed after a quick check to make sure the gun outside didn't pierce his body. He's hyperventilating and shaking in a cold sweat. She knows he sometimes wakes up at night, but she's never seen this before, and isn't sure if it's stupid to reach out and touch his shoulder as slowly and gently as she can.**_

_**He jerks away and after a moment turns to look at her with wide, wild eyes, realizing the touch came from someone who is not a threat to him. It takes him a few moments to discern dream from reality. He looks around the apartment and it's the same as always. The same bed, the same couch and desk. He still shakes, and she murmurs, leaning against his back, whispering into his ear, "It's okay. You're okay. I'm here." She repeats it again and again, a soft mantra, hoping her voice is as soothing as she wants it to be, and it feels like it's some kind of lullaby as she coaxes him back into bed. She kisses his shoulder and the nape of his neck, kisses the space between his shoulder blades. It's not something she does in a sexual manner; she does it to provide comfort, to bring him back to her. She does her best to calm his shuddering breaths, to fill the otherwise silent room. He isn't going to talk. She's come to expect that.**_

_**The words fall from her lips for the first time; words she's fought back due to trepidation and fear of embarrassment. "I love you," she whispers against the nape of his neck.**_

_**His body starts to relax. She doesn't know if that means he heard her or not. But she means it. She holds him, and he eventually relents without a word. **_

_**At some point they both fall back asleep; the last thing she thinks beforehand is that yes, she loves him. And for now that fact manages not to scare the hell out of her.**_

They don't mention what happened that night; not immediately, anyway. Now that she's not in a half-dreaming state, the fact that the words "I love you" slipped out worry her. She can't remember the last time she said anything like that. Perhaps once, in partial-jest whilst laughing at a particularly raunchy, gut-busting joke Carlos had told her. Otherwise, she doesn't say it; not even to Dionne, who feels more like family to her than anyone biologically related. She feels so much for this haunted, angry, and somehow compassionate and protective man whom she's known for several months. This kind of communication and opening up shouldn't be difficult. Maybe it's because Tommy's as far from an open book as he can manage; he's a door slammed shut in her face if she tries to get too close, and it's infuriating when she stops and thinks about it. She gets it. He feels that what he's lived through is far more traumatizing than what she's witnessed and endured, and in some ways he has. Still, she's addressed her fears with him. Most of them, anyway. There are a couple of hurdles to cross now that she's sharing her bed with him on a regular basis, but he's aware of them.

That they've fallen asleep like this; her forehead bowed against his shoulder blades, her breasts against his back, her own arms wrapped around his stocky frame, seems to serve as yet another reminder. She breaths against his skin, takes in the faint scent of the salt of sweat. When she wakes up, she isn't sure if he's asleep or simply uninterested in moving; he doesn't make a sound, but his breathing is shallower, so she guesses the latter.

"Good morning," she murmurs against the shell of his ear, and he grunts something along the lines of "Morning" in response before sitting up and reaching for his boxers. A sign that he remembers what happened, and, of course, will not bring it up or let her bring it up. She sighs and leans back against the bed. God forbid he let a moment of weakness show, even if it meant something, even if it made her feel closer to him than she ever had before, even if it meant those three words, that "I love you" pass through one of their lips for the first time. She can't for the life of him picture him saying it, and for a moment, she's simply pissed off. She watches him get dressed, and refuses to admit to herself that she finds his body every bit as incredible now as she did when she first saw him, all of him, in this room and on this bed, and that she's not staring. She never stares when he's in a half-sleeping haze, slowly adding layers, the thick ropes of muscle in his arms pulling up jeans, the muscles in his back and shoulders moving as he pulls on his tee-shirt. Granted, she prefers it when it's the opposite, but she still can't help but watch.

"You're back where you were before you got injured, fitness-wise," she says aloud, and Tommy turns and looks at her.

He shrugs. "Just about, yeah. I'm not really using it for anything, though."

"Do you miss it?" Jane asks, sitting up.

Tommy hesitates, halfway through reaching for his boots. He glances at her and back at the floor. Yeah, he knows exactly what she's talking about.

"I'm not going to judge you either way, I'm just curious."

He sighs and takes some time to respond. "Yeah," he says finally. "I miss it. It's the only thing I'm any good at anymore."

"You're good at cunnilingus," Jane says, can't help but let a joke slip, and when he looks at her with his eyebrows raised, smiles in as innocent a manner as she can manage.

He snorts in response; a hint of a smile tugging at his lips that grows wider only for a moment and she's always triumphant when she makes him laugh or come close to it. Always.

And then he lets a bomb drop. "How 'bout if I wanted to get back into it?"

Jane blinks. It takes a moment to register. "Because you're bored? Because you'd need a hell of a better reason than that. A dislocated shoulder isn't like a broken bone. It doesn't get stronger once it's healed; it gets weaker."

"I know," Tommy replies, sighing. "And no, I'm not just bored. Shit, Jane, I'm gonna be thirty-one next month. I got nearly ten years on you, and I only got so much time."

"Before what?" she presses on.

"Before I'm too old to fight. Brendan's got only two years on me, and he was the oldest guy in the tournament."

"What about when you _are_ too old? What are you going to do then?" she asks.

Tommy runs a hand through his hair—he hasn't cut it in a while; it's getting shaggier—and sighs. "I don't know. For now I'm going to stick with what I know and see where that takes me."

"What if you get injured again?"

He looks over at her and fixes her with a glare. "I thought you said you weren't judging me either way," he says.

"When you said you missed it. Now I'm worried, not judgmental. See?" Jane gestures around her face. "This is me being concerned for you." She looks at him as she sits cross-legged on the bed and donned in her panties, bra and tank top, with those big dark eyes looking solemnly up at him as he stands above her.

He can't meet those eyes; he paces for a while—he's no good sitting down. "I'm not as crazy as I was," he says finally. "I mean, yeah, this is a dangerous sport so I can't say I'm not gonna get hurt again but…" he exhales and finally sits down next to her. "I'm not as reckless. At least I don't think I am."

He senses her nod. "The family issues aren't quite so urgent," she says quietly.

"Yeah." He glances at her and she's looking down at her hands as she wrings them in her lap. She's tense as hell. "You're not on board with this, are you?"

"Of course I'm not," she says, voice mostly even and at a volume that's nowhere close to shouting. She still doesn't look at him. "I don't give a shit about MMA. I don't have that passion you do, and I can't appreciate it because of what it did to you."

"It was what my brother did to me. There's a difference."

"But…" she hesitates. It doesn't sound like she's going to argue with him anymore. She sounds defeated. "You're a grown man. You're going to do what you're going to do and if it's…" she pauses. "What does David have to say about it?"

"He don't know yet. I'm gonna talk to him about it at our next session."

"Just…" she slumps back, slides until her back hits the wall and sighs. "Humor me and answer me this: has anyone ever…you know, died from an MMA match?"

Tommy snorts. "It's nothing like boxing, Jane. If you're wondering this 'cause of movies like _Million Dollar Baby_ and _The Wrestler_, don't worry."

"Well?"

"In MMA history?" he glances over at her and she nods. "Two. More people die playing pro football than fighting in cages."

"But you can still get really hurt."

"That's the case with any sport; you know that."

"Yeah; I know." She watches as Tommy slides back against the wall with her, and leans her head against his arm. "So if or when David gives you the okay? What then?"

She watches him wince and tilt his head back. "I guess I'll have to go back to my trainer, see if he's on board."

And this she can understand; the hesitation she gets. "You mean your father?"

"You call him that. I like him a lot more as my trainer."

She looks at him, the jaw clenched tight at the mention of his trainer/father and the suddenly closed eyes, and she goes out on a limb. She does something that isn't advisable. "Tommy. Much as you'd probably hate to hear this, you're the apple of his eye. Of course he'd be on board."

"I'm not moving back in with him," he replies, eyes still closed.

"Who said you had to?"

"It was one of his rules the first time."

"So tell him you won't. After you find out whether or not you're actually allowed to go into the ring and when." She almost wants to hear that he can't go back in, or that he'd have to wait for a little while longer. She doesn't know if she can handle that part of him. She saw the videos once and saw a raging, almost monstrous fighter and she doesn't know how much she wants to see him again, let alone in person.

_But he's good at this and he loves it._

_But it's self-destructive._

_It doesn't have to be a manifestation of all his negative emotions; that's the AA in you talking._

"So…" she pauses. "Um; I'm gonna make some coffee." She slides up off the bed and pads over to the kitchen.

This has got to be the most awkward morning they've had together so far.

Still, it could've gone much worse.

**F**

"So, uh," Tommy's back with David. It'll be one of their last meetings before his physical therapy's over. "I was wondering, I mean, athletes can back in the game after an injury, right?" David raises his eyebrows. He doesn't look incredulous or skeptical; he just silently urges the other man to elaborate. "As long as they're healed enough?"

David's mouth tugs up at the corners a little. "You asking for my permission to start fighting again?"

"I just wanna know what you think about it," Tommy replies, not wanting to seem weak or nervous in front of this guy, who is more and more becoming a friend; someone he likes having a beer with and just talking. But this guy's also a health care professional, and he knows that will always come first.

David looks at him with a steady, un-intimidated gaze a little longer, grabs a pen and his pad of paper, and starts writing. "Wait until a year is up. Until you are officially at least one year post-injury. Start off light. Don't get into matches yet. I've worked with a few fighters in my day, so I've got something of a loose plan."

"Were you ever a fighter?"

David shakes his head. "No way, man. My wife comes from a fighting family and roped me into taking a capoeira class a couple of years ago, but I wouldn't go into a cage or a ring. Not in a million years."

"You're an athlete, though." It's not a guess, a question or a speculation. It's something he can tell; not just because this guy's clearly really fit, or his knowledge of exercise. It's just something he can tell; one former jock to another.

"I was," David replies, finally looking up. "Track and Field at Carnegie Mellon."

"No shit; really?"

"Really. The two hundred-meter sprint, 4 X 200, and 50 meter hurdles. Got injured my final year of undergrad."

"How?"

David gives a sad smile and sits back. "It started as shin splints. I insisted on running on them. I had a partial athletic scholarship and my first four years were almost up. My coach also insisted that I run on the shin splints because, hey, no pain no gain. Athletes get hurt. It's a fact of life.

"The shin splints became stress fractures. I still fucking ran. No idea how I managed it. I lived off of Percocet twenty-four-seven, but I still did it. I had to. I was one of the strongest people on the team. Not to brag, but I was fucking _excellent_. Blew competition out of the water at regional championships, was on a national competitive level; the Olympics were starting to look like a real possibility if I could just work through the pain.

"But then they shattered."

"Your shins?" Tommy blinks, gaping.

"Yep."

"_You shattered your shins_? That even possible?"

David shrugs. "Must be. I did it. Hurt like a motherfucker, too. I finally reached a threshold that completely took me out of the game. It wasn't just agonizing to run; I _couldn't fucking do it_. I kept pushing my body through the pain till it finally went 'fuck you, I'm done' and quit on me. I couldn't so much as go for a jog for over two years."

"Shit…" Tommy's left feeling awkward, guilty, everything. "I'm, uh, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It turned out all right eventually. It set me back, took me in a slightly different direction than what I'd planned, but hey, at least now I can work with people as crazy stupid driven as I've been to keep them from making the same mistakes. Tommy, you're an athlete through and through. You're hard-wired to work through pain like it's nothing. But you have to recognize that you, like everyone else, have limits. You have to know what those limits are."

Tommy doesn't know what to say to that right away. Okay; so he's kinda sorta, well, moved. He clears his throat and tries to chuckle. "When'd you go from being my PT to being my shrink?" he asks in a tone he hopes sounds playful. Then again, he never comes across as playful. That's more Jane's department.

David just smirks a little. "As long as it helps keep your feet on the ground, man," he says.

**E**

It's morning the next weekend and Jane's watching Tommy as he borrows Jane's toothbrush for the umpteenth-millionth time and grimacing.

"You really should get your own toothbrush when you're here. Or bring an overnight bag or something if you spend the majority of your weekends here."

He spits into the sink basin and rinses both his mouth and the brush as he gives her an apologetic shrug. He is for the most part easy to stay with, domestically speaking. He cleans up after himself and takes quick showers. The first time he ever showered at her place and came out of the bathroom naked, dripping wet and wondering where the towels were is a sight and memory Jane wants to keep with her for the rest of her days.

"I'll try to remember next time," he tells her. "But when I'm headed to your place things like toothbrushes are the last thing on my mind."

Jane chuckles. "Romantic," she says, and gets up to brush her teeth as well. "Your birthday's coming up."

"Mm-hm."

"Have you thought about anything you might want?"

"I don't know. Nothing, maybe? I was fine with that last year."

Jane snorts and finishes brushing her teeth. When she's done she turns to him with a little smirk and leans her hands on the sink behind her. "Come on, Gramps. You're going to want something to celebrate your longevity." And she says it with the sweetest smile she can manage as she tilts her head down and looks at him from under those long lashes.

Tommy glares at her as she rinses out her mouth and her toothbrush. Then he finally starts laughing.

"God, you're young," he tells her.

Jane shakes her head a little and turns to him. "Only on the outside."

Tommy catches when Jane's smile fades and she draws away from him. So what he does is pull her back in and kiss her. For his part, he's wondering if she's hurt that he hasn't told her he loves her yet, when she has. But that's a stupid question to ask. Of course she's hurt. She just doesn't want to act like a melodramatic high school girl by sulking around or questioning him. He does. He _does_. He just…those words wouldn't sound right coming from his mouth. He can't form them, can't say them aloud.

But hell, he has to. He remembers that night, remembers the words spoken and she sounded like an angel when for several moments, several lifetimes, he was stuck back in the desert with his best friend giving his dying words when he couldn't do anything to save the man who'd saved his life countless times and…

"I…uh…" he hesitates and kisses her again. She looks at him with an expression so bewildered that he laughs a little as he dips his head to kiss her neck. "I…"

"What?" She puts her hands on his chest and pushes him away to arm's length. Without kissing her, without her permission to ease her into it the best way he knows how, he can either choke the words back or blurt them out clumsily. And of course he goes for the latter.

"I love you," he tells her. He's pretty sure he looks a little terrified when he says it, which doesn't help at all.

Jane takes a step back. This isn't the grand romantic moment either of them would've preferred. He should've said it earlier, should've told her first or even that night she said it to him for the first time. Right now she looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

"I…" she clears her throat. "Listen," she starts, sounds desperate. She's saying; _Please don't fuck with me on this. I can't handle it if you don't really mean it_. "Listen," she starts again, and she's wringing her hands, "If you're saying that because you feel obligated or guilty, don't say it. Don't say it if you don't—"

And fuck it all, he grabs her back and kisses her. Not roughly; it's not a 'fuck me' kiss. It's a 'love me' kiss. Gentle as opposed to demanding. He brings a hand to the side of her face, feeling the soft skin, hears the soft gasp as his other hand reaches the small of her back and holds her to him.

It's easier to say a second time. He pulls back enough to graze his lips over hers, and then her jaw. "I love you," he says it lower, says it softly. The words come out easier this time.

Those big dark eyes inspect his face, seem to try to detect a lie and there's none to be found. He means it. He's terrible with words and far from the best communicator but he means this. His lover's eyes look to well up a bit and he lowers his head a little, brings his forehead to hers.

"I love you, too," Jane murmurs back.


End file.
